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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23479018">What of the Hedge Mage?</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/CommonEvilMastermind/pseuds/CommonEvilMastermind'>CommonEvilMastermind</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>BDSM, Banter, F/M, Fix It, Hurt/Comfort, Kink Negotiation, M/M, Pesach | Passover, Soulmates, Sub Solas (Dragon Age), Subspace, Touch-Starved, adoribull is background, also some feelings, author's goal: wreck solas, back into solavellan hell, elves are jewish, fight me, fluff and feelings, in this house we talk about our feelings, loving dom, mood: write or die, the author is in lockdown and must write terrible fanfiction</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 07:42:33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>36,304</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23479018</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/CommonEvilMastermind/pseuds/CommonEvilMastermind</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It was only the presence of the anchor that made the bond between them. No one had a bashert anymore - no one had a soulmate.</p><p>A lonely, touch-starved Solas comes head-to-head with a Lavellan who talks about her feelings; non-canon communication, consent, and exploring what it means to want and to be wanted. Featuring a Skyhold that loves her, Evanuris, smut, and very Jewish elves.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Female Lavellan/Solas, Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus, Lavellan/Solas (Dragon Age)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>154</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>162</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Prologue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Acts I, II, and III are published, please enjoy!</p><p>NSFW chapters will be marked so you can skip them (or skip to them) as you wish. </p><p>Nothing is ever possible without my beta, rpglvr, without whom I am a grammatical, inconsistent mess. </p><p>Title and inspiration are from a drawing I saw on tumblr and am still looking to find again, where Solas is lying in his bedroll listening to others talk about him. If you know the drawing, please let me know so I can cite my sources!</p><p>4/9: Note the rating change. NSFW chapters are self-contained, skip them (or skip TO them) as need be<br/>Content warning: implied past trauma</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"What of the hedge mage?" cut the voice over the fire. "What do we even know of him?"</p><p>"I like him," said the elf.</p><p>A soft silence fell as they turned to look at her, Seeker, the soldier, and the spy.</p><p>"I have not found him... personable." The Seeker's mouth tightened. "There is an edge to his smile that I do not like."</p><p>"It is not a real smile," the Nightingale agreed. "It is a mask, one he wears to conceal.... something."</p><p>"Now, why would an apostate, trapped in the middle of a pile of angry Chantry folk, want to conceal anything?" The soldier was smarter than he looked. He leaned back, shaking his head as if it hurt him. "I'm sure there is no reason he would feel ill at ease."</p><p>The Seeker made a noise in the back of her throat, not a disagreement. The spy's eyes tightened in a way that was beginning to mean displeasure. That woman gave very little away. "Do you trust him?"</p><p>The lone elf looked into the fire. The flames danced up around the wet wood, crackling and popping as they fed.</p><p>The silence stretched; The Seeker shifted and the soldier drummed his heel on the ground.</p><p>The spy waited.</p><p>"Not to choose a mortal over a spirit," the elven woman said, slow and soft. "Not to choose food over a book. But to journey with me? Yes." She took up a stick and shifted through the embers until they glowed brighter than the mark on her hand.</p><p>The Seeker, the soldier, and the spy watched the light and the darkness play over the muddy grounds of Haven. Just beyond the supply tent, someone else watched too. Someone with keen ears, keener than nature intended, who heard the final syllables twist within the spitting of the fire.</p><p>"I like his stories."</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. The Taste of Snow</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Chuckles, there you are." Varric stopped him as he slipped back through the trees near the apothecary's hut. "Have you seen the Herald?"</p><p>"No, but neither have I been looking." A lie; he looked for her everywhere, even when he wasn't intending to. She caught in the corner of his eye, the edges of his thoughts. But he had not seen her today. "Is something amiss?"</p><p>"Just more Chantry folk wanting a piece of her," the dwarf muttered. "Another group of refugees came in to receive her blessing, you know-"</p><p>"Then I do not blame her for going missing." Solas regarded the dwarf. "I believe the Hands of the Divine might be more circumspect about sheltering her. Unless, of course, they are using her as a tool to muster the Chantry's political power and right to rule. Especially in the wake of the death of the Divine."</p><p>Varric looked at him. "You've got a sense for politics, Chuckles. Lot of power plays in the Fade?"</p><p>"Master Tethras, you would not begin to believe me if I were to tell you."</p><p>"Oh? I didn't think spirits could be so cunning."</p><p>"The Fade reflects the memories of the world, Master Tethras." Solas shifted on his feet. "Power, politics, courts, and intrigue alike. Just because I was an observer to the games does not mean that I was blind to them."</p><p>Varric weighed something in his mind, thinking. Then, like the sun coming out, his face broke into a tired, genuine smile. "I'd like to hear more about it sometime, Chuckles. I bet you've got a tale or two to tell."</p><p>Solas tucked a smile away under a small bow. "I have nothing to say that could match your... invention. But perhaps we should turn to the matter of the missing Herald."</p><p>Varric sighed. "Better we find her than they do. Do you want the north end of the camp, or the south?"</p><p>"I will take the nearby forest, and you the camp. A Dalish elf would not be easy in such crowds."</p><p>"Some do quite like the city-"</p><p>"The Herald is not easy in such crowds."</p><p>"Yeah." Varric sighed. "Good hunting, Chuckles."</p><p>"Mm."</p><p>Solas went out the side gate, Stepping through the Fade to avoid the guard's suspicions (and, more accurately, to tweak the Nightingale's nose as she tried to watch his comings and goings). He looped around to the west, where the Drufflo liked to graze in a nearby thick copse of pine. He did not look at her, where she was perched in the frozen boughs. But he could feel her watching him.</p><p>He liked the feeling. Of her eyes on him, as he walked by.</p><p>Something cold and wet hit the top of his head, sliding down his neck, trickling down his back. He yelped, the sound mixed with a soft laugh and muffled in the snowy trees. He raised an eyebrow and scowled, and the quiet laughter cut off as if with a knife.</p><p>The trees were utterly silent and still.</p><p>Solas, as slow as winter sap, bent down to the ground and lay down his staff. In bare hands that bit with the cold, he broke through the top crust of snow and packed together some of the underlying powder, leaving the back of his neck exposed.</p><p>She did not pass up such a tempting target, but as soon as the missile struck, he whirled around and threw his own snowball back into the trees. A soft yelp told him his aim was true and he bent for more ammunition, but the stuff on the ground was not so malleable as the sun-warmed snow on the boughs of the tree and he only managed one shot for every two of hers.</p><p>And a... feeling rose up in his chest. A little like the focus of battle, in that everything else fell away but here, this place, and this moment. Only not in the slightest like at all, for his breath came lightly and his mouth curved upwards and there was that sound again, the softest and most beautiful laughter floating through the trees.</p><p>He misjudged a step and stumbled, his bare feet cracking through the snow's crust and leaving him lopsided in the powdery mess. A pair of hands behind him helped him lose his balance further, and he pitched face-first into the snow, a weight on his back driving him deeper, stuffing handfuls of it down the back of his collar.</p><p>"Enough, enough!" he cried, sputtering. "Enough!" The weight on his back shifted and he shifted under it, tipping her off and into the snow drift with a squawk of dismay.</p><p>"No, no, stop!" she could hardly breathe for giggling and the snow he was piling on her face. "Stop, mercy!"</p><p>He stopped and she sputtered for breath. His face ice-red and dripping, he sat back on his heels in the snowy hollow they had made. His cheeks hurt. He realized he was smiling. "Truce?" he said, catching his breath.</p><p>She flipped one more handful of snow up, hitting him right in the center of his face. "Truce!" she laughed as he lurched forward for a counter attack. "Truce, truce!"</p><p>He shook his head, snow flying, and looked at her. She smiled at him - not at Fen'Harel, <em> him, - </em>and something hot lanced through his heart before he could stop it. It shook him so badly that he did not pull away when she reached towards him, when she brushed the melting snow off of his face, his nose, the tops of his cheeks. Her fingers, freed from their sensible gloves, were warm, and he realized when she pulled away that he had forgotten to breathe.</p><p>"You are a terror," he told her with a gentle smile, and she grinned at him again like the sun through the clouds and nodded in agreement.</p><p>They made a fire, in their little snow-hollow, burning small and hot with pilfered branches from the pines. She sat so close to him that their elbows brushed, and they listened to the dripping water, the crack of the burning wood, the far-off movement of the druffalo. He found himself spilling stories like water, tales of his travels, of his life "in the Fade," offering them to her listening silence in return for the soft, clever questions that spun the stories on.</p><p>It grew dark. He did not leave. They shared some bread from her pockets, now slightly squished. It wasn't until the moon rose high enough to peek over the treetops that she looked once again towards Haven.</p><p>As she did so, the smile fell out of her eyes.</p><p>"It must be hard to be in such demand," he said, remembering.</p><p>The corner of her mouth twisted. "I wanted to be wanted, once. Not so long ago."</p><p>"This fortnight has lasted a decade, if my calculations are correct," he said dryly, surprising that soft laugh from her lips. The questions piled up inside him, about her past, about her clan, who had she walked with that ever made her feel <em> unwanted? </em> But the Nightingale and the Seeker had met with only cold silence in their inquiries, and he found he did not want to banish the smile from her eyes again. So instead he said, "It is different, I believe. To be wanted for <em> what </em> you are, instead of for <em> who </em>you are."</p><p>"Mm," she agreed. "A symbol."</p><p>He nodded seriously. "A sneaking, snow-covered terror."</p><p>She laughed, and it mixed with the moonlight, so bright that he almost could not see her slave's brand.</p><p>~*~</p><p>He ran, and damnation followed behind him, the tunnel under Haven collapsing in a rain of timber, of hellfire, of ashes and smoke and power twisted into something unholy, something profane, something of his making. He ran and his own creation followed on his heels, burning the bottoms of his feet; he would die here, under the mountain, and the world would turn to ash and the broken bodies of the gods-</p><p>Out, out, into the fresh air. His lungs burned and the tunnel belched like hell behind him, sealing itself shut forever. He could not breathe and someone was shouting at him, "Solas, Solas! Where is she? Where is the Herald?" The Seeker, wide-eyed, shaking him, and he could not breathe for it, for the feel of her on his skin, he wrenched away and coughed, spitting ash onto the snow, white and red and black.</p><p>He looked to Varric, but the dwarf's face was carved from stone. Solas looked around, wildly.</p><p>"We haven't seen her come out," said the Qunari. The Templar's face was streaked with ashes, and the Warden looked as if he would charge back into the ruins of Haven at the slightest provocation.</p><p>Seeker Pentaghast had the jaw-set of a warrior watching the world come to an end. Again.</p><p>Solas closed his eyes and drew in a breath that his lungs refused, but he drew it in anyway. He cast his mind behind him, to the flickering ruin of the place she had built, cast his mind through the buildings and the shadows and the flame, searching for the sliver of his own soul tucked within her palm-</p><p>But all he could taste was the rancid power of his Orb, twisted by the mad magister and red lyrium. There was no sense of her, no snow-pure taste of her against his mind. He reached further and staggered as the ground shook. As Haven trembled and collapsed.</p><p>A spirit in the form of a trembling boy stood behind Varric, murmuring. "Harritt at the forge. Lysette at the gates. Flissa at the tavern. Adan and Minaeve, burning at the huts. Threnn is fighting, templars! Seggrit's in the burning building-"</p><p>"She had to save everyone," Varric murmured.</p><p>The Nightingale snapped, "And if she is dead, it does not matter if she saved them now. We will all die soon enough without her. The Herald-"</p><p>"She was Aviva first," said the boy softly.</p><p>Silence fell in a pool at their feet.</p><p>"Lavellan-"</p><p>"Lavellan was her clan's name," The Nightingale said, voice clipped.</p><p>"Did anyone..." Varric's face was covered with ash, and he looked unfathomably sad. "Did anyone ever ask the poor kid what her first name was?"</p><p>The Warden shifted, uncomfortable. "I suppose I thought it was Thunder."</p><p>"That was a nickname. It was funny. Because she's so quiet." Varric looked at the column of smoke rising from the ruins of Haven. "Aviva. Ah-veev-uh. Well. Fuck."</p><p>~</p><p>They walked for miles, but he remembered none of it. The snow bit, and the wind blew, and it went all the way down to his bones, and he felt none of it. Figures stumbled before him and behind him and he saw none of it. He only saw her in his imagination, broken like a rag-doll, eyes cold and dull. Covered by the ash and snow. Or falling open, her skin and bones peeling away like a nightmare's flower in front of the sick smile of the magister. Or standing, steel in her eyes, as the dragon took her down, savoring her blood down its throat-</p><p>Someone put wood in his hands and said "light," and he did, the fire spilling out of him. Someone put a cup in his hands and said "drink" and he did. Snow-melt, hot and brackish, roiling in his stomach. Someone put a crust of bread in his hands and said "eat" and he didn't, he pressed it back and walked away from the light of the fire.</p><p>His fault.</p><p>His failure.</p><p>She was gone.</p><p>Some distant part of his mind was shouting. He had lost before. He had failed before. He could plan. There was a way. He just had to think, had to think, had to plan, he just had to plan and to think, think!</p><p>That part of his mind was a long way away. He let it shout until it grew tired and faded, leaving him in silence.</p><p>She was gone.</p><p>The wind was howling through the mountain passes. Had they passed through there, all of them? Where were they to go now? The thoughts drifted through his mind and away again, unimportant.</p><p>Her name had been Aviva. Spring. New life coming through the snow. The green spears of the first irises, staining the whiteness. Birds in the trees. Spring, which would now not come. The wind was howling through the mountains, tasting like ash, tasting like-</p><p>The snow-pure taste of her in his mind-</p><p>He ran. Someone shouted behind him and he ran like a madman through the snow, not sparing a breath through his aching lungs. They burned from the smoke and the cold and he ran, will alone fueling him when breath and body failed. The wind was howling like a lonely wolf in his ears, his blood and heart pounding with his ragged lungs when he topped the pass and saw a flicker of green, like an iris in the snow.</p><p>He was on his knees, gathering her close, brushing the snow from her brow, from her lips and the tops of her cheeks. She was so cold, cold, except the hand that held his magic, held the anchor, which was burning fever-hot. She was covered in snow and blood and brands and ash and she was alive.</p><p>She was <em> here </em>.</p><p>He held her to his chest and she curled into the warmth of him and he wept.</p><p>~</p><p>Later, when the dawn had come, he told himself that he had wept for relief. That he was glad that the anchor had survived, and his plans not fallen to failure. Later, in the light, he told himself he cared only for what she was, the vessel for his power.</p><p>Standing in the sunshine, he knew it was a lie.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. What We Dream</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>4/9 edit for continuity</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Skyhold belonged to her in an instant. From her first foot-fall onto the mountain, he felt the powers tucked into the rough stone awaken, like a great slumbering beast stretching out in the cold. This place was more awake than any other, more real than any other; the stone here had been the last to be torn separate from its soul in the Fade and it remembered, a little, what it had been.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It remembered, and it loved her. It loved her small cold hands on the cracked wooden beams and the softness of her voice under the open sky, it loved her and he could </span>
  <em>
    <span>feel</span>
  </em>
  <span> it love her, in a way the stone and snow had never awoken for him. Even before. Why did it so love her? For the stonemasons and the wood carvers she brought? For the thatchers and joiners that followed her, for the mages and soldiers that looked to her? She was everywhere, in the rebuilding, in every dusty nook and cranny, small and quiet and ceaseless in her work. Skyhold loved her instantly and he could not help but wonder </span>
  <em>
    <span>why?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>It could only be the aspect of his power, the echo she bore of the world where Skyhold had once been the center of all. It was likely only the aspect of his power, in her hand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But he saw the gentleness as she scrubbed and hauled and sanded, bringing the place to life. He saw the light in her smile as she welcomed them, pilgrim and soldier and refugee. Skyhold, which had been too lonely, loved her for it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was a big fortress, a remote fortress, a fortress to be inaccessible; used in the most dire of times and then abandoned quickly for warmer climes and better fields. Yet Skyhold ached when it was empty; it wanted to be wanted, to be useful, to be good. It wanted to help. It wanted to be loved.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He watched her wake it up again, call the stone to stand and shelter and hold; to be a home. He watched her, and he wondered.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There were those that thought since she was an elf, she'd be amiable, servile. Since she was a woman, she'd be accommodating. Since she was slight and quiet and beautiful, they would easily get their way. There were many, many people who thought those things and they were, all of them, wrong.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Before the Inquisition, in the beginning of Haven, it seemed as if the Seeker, the spy, the soldier, and the scribe would truly shape the events to come; the elf with the magic in her hand was a political tool, not a player in her own right. It had only, slowly become apparent that what the elf wanted was what would be done. It was she who fulfilled the requisitions and softly directed their use, it was she who had the ear of the blacksmith, the quartermaster, the tavern keeper, the apothecary, and traded her surety for their loyalty.  She won the soldier on the chessboard and the Seeker on the training grounds and the spy with little slips of paper and a quiet confidence that the Nightingale, for all her knowledge, lacked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And he could not understand how, how they trusted her while knowing so little. While she said so little, only offered her warm and listening silence. She was not real, not truly, only a shadow in this mistake of a future.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And yet he watched her, and he wondered.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She watched everyone. She watched Sera, loud and unpredictable, and the Warden in his stumbling silences. She watched Madame De Fer from a cool, polite distance and the tevinter mage from a farther one. She watched Cole and she listened. Sometimes she smiled. She listened to Varric too, if less often than the dwarf would like.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She watched, and she listened, and she steered the entire world on her small, silent shoulders, but she didn't speak, not really.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Except, sometimes, to him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was just to satisfy her curiosity. She would ask in the morning, "What did you dream?" And he would tell her, of the banquets or battles or soft, sleepy farmland that they rested near. And she would smile. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When they walked, she would slip beside him on the trail and point to show him a flower, a healing herb, a handful of berries or, once, a cluster of baby nugs with their pink, naked noses and button-bright eyes. He learned which flowers were her favorites by the way she turned towards them like the sun and found himself gathering small, smooth, round stones from the riverbank just for the smile she would give him in exchange. When he caught himself, he dropped them from his hands with a clatter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She turned to him, like to none of the others, and he told himself it was only for the way he tamed the pain of the mark in her hand. She should not have been able to hold it, was not made to hold it, and he knew too well the power's bite and burn. It smelled like magic and cracked like lightning and her hands grew white-knuckled with pain on her staff when she burned the rifts out of the sky.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then she would turn to him, gray-skinned, small shoulders bowed, let him take her hand and fuss over it a little. With his touch on her palm, she started breathing, and the sick green sound of the anchor in her flesh would give way to the taste of new-fallen snow. The fever in her palm would subside, just a little, and she would lean her weight against him while the others gathered any remnants they could.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It became a ritual. "Are you all right?" he would say, softly, over her palm.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Mm," she would hum, neither denial nor agreement, and rest for a moment against him until he almost could not breathe for her closeness, the warmth of her, her scent. Why me, he never asked, for she could not be fond of him. And when the moment passed, she would stand straight again and they would carry onwards. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But he watched her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And he wondered.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>~</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He could not say he heard her footsteps, no more than one can hear a silent prayer, but he knew when she came to the rotunda late at night. More and more often he would be there, chasing fragments of knowledge through broken texts and whispering stones instead of through the Fade as was his birthright, and he would see the edge of her in the pool of light around his desk, there at the center of the world.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>More and more often, he wanted to be there, just in case she came to him. Not that she came to </span>
  <em>
    <span>him </span>
  </em>
  <span>- he was likely just the only one awake.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And yet, she came.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She wore boots during the day, when on duty. She had promised; she was the Inquisitor, she was their hope, and she wore boots for them. The heels rang out as she walked the stone halls. But at night and on the battlefield, she moved silently, feet bare.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He sometimes wondered if the night and the battlefield were so different for her after all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She brought her silence with her, sunk into the hollows of her eyes and the folds where human clothing didn't quite fit. Sometimes she would climb on top of his scaffold and watch each doorway with wild-edged eyes until the night and the peace weighed them down. Sometimes she curled up on his couch, toes tucked under her legs, and watched him as he pressed their story into paint and wet plaster. Sometimes she walked the hallways and corridors, passing in and out of his doorways, restless and on guard and always drawn back to the center.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>One night, and only one, she had come into the rotunda and crossed straight to his desk. He looked up, surprised, and blinked as she curled up under the table, knees to her chest, face buried in her arms.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She was close enough that he could feel the warmth pooling off of her, close enough to feel her faint trembling. Her head, bent forward, caught a beam of lamplight and he saw the shadow of an old, thick scar ringing the base of her neck.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He made himself look away. He only shifted himself slightly to block her from view and stared at notes that he could no longer read as they passed the long night together.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was only because he was the last awake. He was sure.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A few days later, she joined him on his scaffolding as he painted, swinging her legs and watching the room. Her silence was heavy with a question she did not ask. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He waited; he was patient. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Solas?" His name in her voice, oh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Hmm?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Will you teach me to dream as you do?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The question wasn't unexpected, but he weighed it carefully. "I can teach you to control your dreams, without walking through the terrors of the Fade. Some are worse than any nightmare."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She rubbed the back of her neck and he wished he had not spoken. Yet, she could not truly wish to walk, as he did? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The silence grew brittle, but she did not break it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He did; he was not patient. "I can also teach you to walk the Fade as I do," he murmured. "If you wish."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I do," she whispered. "When you talk about it, it always sounds beautiful."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>~</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I will come to you in your sleep tonight, and we will begin your lessons," he told her, when he was ready.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Will you see what I am dreaming?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He met her eyes and nodded, once. It was day, and the library was humming above them. She sat on his scaffolding, legs dangling, and he looked up at her from where he stood. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She took a breath and absently touched her wrist, the scar he knew hid there. "Very well." Then she looked down at him and smiled. "I will be glad to see you there."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He promptly forgot how to breathe. "I- yes." He swallowed, scrambling for a thought. "I, ah, could come to you. Before." Her eyes grew wide, this was a bad thought. "I could come to you before you sleep, and teach you how to settle quickly. Join you soon after, so you do not have time to fall into a bad, into a dream that you, ah, do not wish me to see." He was a figurative and literal god, why was he like this. Why.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But her eyes were sparkling with laughter. She slid off the scaffold and he raised his arms to catch her, without thinking. "They will talk, if you come to me." She leaned in so close that he could feel the puff of her breath on his ear and he was suddenly, horribly aroused. "Best to not be seen."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She winked and walked away, through the door to the main hall, and he let out a breath he had forgotten about.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Why was he like this.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Why.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>~</span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <span>He was not seen when he came to her that night, not unless the Nightingale had broken the magic of Skyhold while he had been distracted (she had not). The door was open, slightly ajar, and he slipped in and closed it behind him with a small, final click.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She was still dressed, sans boots, which lay as if they had been kicked off with great violence and abandoned on the steps. She sat atop the flight of stairs leading up into the room, a stack of reports in her hands and ink smudged on her fingers and forehead. She was rubbing her forehead now, but she stopped and smiled to see him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She smiled to see </span>
  <em>
    <span>him.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Best not think of that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His rooms had been this grand, once, large and echoing. But those rooms had been only for show. He liked hers better now, echoing as they reflected the wide open sky beyond. Stone and wind and glass atop a mountain, the doors to the balcony thrown wide, mixing the nighttime with the darkness within. It should have been freezing, but it was as warm as lying in the sunshine on the first real day of spring. Skyhold loved her, and kept her warm.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Hello," he said, for lack of a better thing to say.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She stretched, standing, trying to hide the stiffness in her posture. "Hi." </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He came up the steps into the room, glancing at the documents as he did so. Requisitions.</span>
</p><p>
  <span> "Are you ready?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"To take you to bed?" He looked up, too sharply, but she was smiling. Teasing? Behind the smile, something brittle. Something he did not like, in the joke about wanting him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Perhaps we will start by talking." He gestured to the fireplace and they settled cross-legged on the floor, her knee just barely brushing his own. He looked into the fire, away from her sharp eyes. "Tell me how you fall asleep."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Next to him, she shifted and did not answer. He watched the fire burn; the air smelled like the mountain wind and the stone was warm underneath him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Not well." Her voice was soft.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Do you sleep here?" He looked at the bed, the covers stiff and unwrinkled. It was surrounded by doorways, back, to the balcony, the stairs to the rest of the fortress. Wide open, impossible to see every way in at once. He was not surprised when she shook her head </span>
  <em>
    <span>no.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>"Where?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A shrug. He looked at her, weighing the silence. She looked away. "Scaffold in the rotunda. Attic of the tavern. On the road."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He thought on this, of his company in the rotunda, of Cole's watch over the tavern, of her tent-mate's presence on the road. "So, not alone."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Not alone," she confirmed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Ideally, some place high up. And not... open." He looked up, towards the balcony overlooking the room, where someone had painted over the central insignia of the mural. "Up here."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She looked dubious, but followed him up the ladder. The narrow walkway had widened somewhat, and the junk removed, until the only thing left was a wide bedroll and rough woolen blankets smelling faintly of damp sheep. Behind them, he pulled the ladder (now lighter and folding) up and closed the trap door.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her eyes were wide with questions. He shrugged. "Skyhold likes you. It is waking up."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Always your answers make more questions." She wrinkled her nose and walked to the bedroll, sitting down.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He sat beside her. "May I?" He took her hands - small and cold, rough and stained - and brought them, palm down, to his chest. She looked up at him, startled, but did not pull away. "Breathe with me," he said. "Only breathe. And if your mind drifts, just bring it back again and breathe with me."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Do I lay down?" she asked, "Shut my eyes?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Only if you wish. Right now, just breathe." He filled his lungs with air to demonstrate and let it out, slowly. She watched him, too intensely, and the touch of her hands held to his chest filled him with an emotion he did not dare to name. He breathed in, then out, longer on the out-breath than the in. And again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He could feel it when she matched him, like a snapping click of two pieces joining. In and out like a cresting wave, her hands on his chest. Her mind did not drift; unsurprising. There were mages who could focus and there were mages who were dead. Their breath flowed together and he lost himself in it, for a time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He could feel it in her breathing when her eyes closed. He could feel it in her breathing when she smiled. As her muscles started to unwind. She slowly let herself relax; the curve of her spine, the set of her shoulders. Her head started to bob and he shifted his weight - a suggestion. She took it, let gravity carry her down, one hand still brushing his stomach until her eyes slid open with a question and he lay down beside her, her hand over his heart, and he followed her breathing as they slid back into their pattern.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Below them, in the wide open room, the fire flickered and went out. A soft night breeze blew in through the open windows. They followed one another into dream.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>~</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Why Haven?" she asked, the wet mud under their feet. It was as unlovely in the Fade as it had been in reality, a scrabble of hard-picked mud and ramshackle buildings, the center of the end of the world. Why Haven, indeed? He could have brought her anywhere, he could have brought her everywhere, but this was the place they had come.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Why?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Haven was important to you,” he said. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Haven was important to me,</span>
  </em>
  <span> he did not say. Instead, he said, “Have you ever traveled in the Fade before?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She looked at him, then the Breach in the sky, then back at him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He raised an eyebrow. "The correct way. Before the current apocalypse."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She shook her head; another failure of the Dalish.</span>
</p><p><span>"Look at yourself." He conjured a mirror - not </span><em><span>that </span></em><span>kind of</span> <span>mirror, a simple one with a solid wood frame - and walked behind her so their reflections looked back at them. "What do you notice?"</span></p><p>
  <span>She studied herself, first with the tilt of the head that meant she was curious, then with the line in her brow that meant she was focusing. She stepped closer to the mirror, her fingertips brushing the surface, then turned around and stepped back. She stopped just a scant handful of inches in front of him and put her hand on top of her head, then slid it across to measure herself against him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She came up to his chest. In the waking world, she stood as tall as his chin. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She looked up at him, scowling. "You're taller."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You are shorter." He took her by her shoulders and turned her back to face the mirror. "It is only your spirit that has traveled here, your spirit and your will. You have no physical form; why are you shorter?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Cruelty."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Try again."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She thought. He let her. "All I am, is my spirit." She looked at the mirror. "I see myself as short. So here, that's what I am. If I believed I were tall-" She turned to him, and he nodded his head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Go on."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She met her own eyes in the mirror and took a deep breath in. Nothing happened. She tried again. Nothing. He was about to stop her, to give her a stone and work with that, as a beginner should properly do, when she took another deep breath and, suddenly, the top of her head matched his chin. Again, and she looked him in the eyes. Then she was taller than him, then taller still, until she was grinning down at him and he peering up at her from the region of her breasts.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A sudden, shaking thought hit, about stepping forward and folding himself into her embrace, being held and surrounded and-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He shook his head. Absolutely not. "Now I know how you feel when you talk to The Iron Bull."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She let out a laugh and shrunk back down to something closer to her real-world height. He shook his head again, clearing it. "Very good. In the Fade, without a physical body, you appear as you envision yourself, as you see your own self in your mind. Some, may look more handsome, or taller, or fatter or thinner. Some-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You look just the same." She was looking him up and down.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>An illusion,</span>
  </em>
  <span> he wanted to admit, and shied away from the thought as if it had burned him with a brand. Instead, he said, "It is important to have an accurate sense of self, in the Fade, when you have no physical body to shape you. It is important to know who you truly are, and reflect that."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her mouth twisted upwards in something that was not a grin. Something wry and brittle. "Who I truly am?" </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He raised an eyebrow. "That sounded like a question."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She shrugged and he... he waited. He had thought to take her to the place where they first met, the dungeon, but he did not. He put his hands behind his back and relaxed and he waited. Not this time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She wrinkled her nose, aware of what he was doing. She dodged so many questions by keeping her own council, by being quiet and waiting for the other to lose patience, to answer the question in her place. But not here, not now - not this question.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Who I truly am?" she murmured, as soft as the Fade wind. "Once, First. Now... the last. I am… a survivor. A runaway. Herald, and a heretic. Commander, soldier, politician, spy. Symbol. Andreste's hand, come to save us. Come to destroy us. Outcast. Impostor. Sinner. Saint. Dalish. Inquisitor. All of it and none." Her voice was low and dark, terrifying, more words than he had ever heard. "None of it, none of it matters-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He caught her by the shoulders. "No," he said, and the fervor of it surprised him. "All of it matters. Everything is changing, Aviva - everything is changing, like the spring, and it will continue to change." Her name on his lips. His voice cracked - why? - but he found he could not stop. "To endure it, to endure it, ma Aviva, you must hold fast to who you are. To what is important to you. It matters not what they call you, what anyone calls you - what do you stand for?" She looked up at him, wild-eyed. "What matters?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She looked into his eyes, through his very soul. "Freedom," she whispered, and the strength of it shook his bones to the core. "Freedom is what matters. For the slaves. For my people. The wretched and unwanted, the lost and broken and afraid, all of them, all of us - they are mine, now. I'm going to take care of them, I'm going to keep us safe, I'm going to find out what happened and send Corypheus back to a moldering grave and we will be free. And we will be safe.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And no one will ever hurt us, not ever again."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He stepped back, staggered back, his hands burning with the fire of her spirit and his eyes full of her flame. Breathless in a form that did not need air to breathe he somehow said, "I believe you."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She looked at him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I believe you." He swore it. "Remember. Freedom." </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Too much, this was too much. She was not real, he could not- </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He shook his head and looked away. "If you remember what you stand for, how it defines you: that does not change. You will be free of, of much danger here. In the Fade. And out there, too."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Oh, what had he done? What was he going to do?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I... sorry," she said, and he looked up to see her half turned away. The glory of her was shuttered, pulled back into her skin and he ached for its loss. "I did not mean to be so..."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He leaned over, caught her hand as she started to pull away. "Please," he said, "Don't. Don't apologize." He had no words, no way to explain. Locked away in the nightmare of this future, everything dull and lifeless to his senses, she blazed like a hearthfire. She blazed like the sun. She could not be real, and yet- "You change everything."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She stepped into him, too close, not close enough. "Everything is changing forever,” she murmured. "You called me Aviva."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He should move away. "I did."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You called me your Aviva."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He could not do this. "I did."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And she kissed him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He froze.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He was an intelligent man. He was clever. This was proven. He had waged a war against the gods and brought the world crashing to their feet. He had broken the whole of the universe in two, he had saved thousands of lives and ended thousands upon thousands more. But he froze in place like a statue when she kissed him, unthinking, his mind a white roar of nothingness, his heart pounding in his breast.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She kissed him. Him. Solas, an apostate in coarse home-spun, no jewels or armies or power or statues, she just kissed him. Just him, just Solas.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She was kissing him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then she wasn't.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She wasn't kissing him, and that was suddenly, immediately a thousand times worse. She was pulling away, ashamed? Abashed? Apologetic? Afraid, afraid he didn't want-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>-he hadn't kissed back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He unfroze, all at once, lunging for her, pulling her back and into his arms and kissing her as if she were the air and he had forgotten how to breathe. The feel of her touch, of her, holding him, the solidity of her in his arms, just like and yet nothing like-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>-a dream.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He pulled back so quickly he nearly lost his balance. His lips, his hands, he burned where she had touched him, burned with something that may be want or desire or things he could not feel, dare not name, he shouldn't-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"We shouldn't-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She raised her hand and touched her lips where he had just pulled away. "Because I'm Dalish?" Her voice was low and... sad.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"What, no-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Because I'm the Inquisitor?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"No! Well-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"If you do not want to kiss me, you are under no obligation, even if I am the Inquisitor.” She was so sad. “I'm not trying to, to manipulate you-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"That isn't- I don't feel manipulated, I-" He ran a hand over his head and made himself stop, slow down, to think, to stop talking before he- "It- I want to. I want you-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Do you?" She doubted him, she doubted that he wanted her. He looked up and met her eyes; it was a mistake. He saw something there, something so alive that he ached for it. But even as he watched, the creeping frost of her doubt covered it, locked it away under a layer of icy defense that would never melt for him again. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She began to turn away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I do." He said it simply, to the ground, letting the truth fall into the gentle silence. He was about to say more, to let the reasons and excuses pour out of his mouth, to stop this before it truly began-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But he felt her small, rough hand slide into his own. She waited and stepped in close, resting her head on his shoulder.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The words died on his tongue. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I want this," she said softly. Then she reached up and drew him down, kissing him on the lips as gently as a prayer. "I want this." The words ghosted on his own lips. "And for everything else, we can take it slow." She smiled. "We can talk about it."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wonder and dread mixed horribly in his belly; his heart was soaring and his guts were full of stone. He couldn’t do this. "I can promise you nothing," he told her, but his arms drew her in close and he pressed his forehead against her own, as if that itself was a vow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Mm," she smiled. "Who can? That is the way of things, in the beginning. And at the end." She reached up and kissed his brow and he knew. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He was doomed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She pulled away, just a little, fitting her hand in his own.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Are you still going to teach me?" She smiled.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He swallowed, still horribly off balance. "Is that what you wish?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Mm," she confirmed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Very well." He shook his head to clear it and failed, utterly. He did not reclaim his hand. "How.... ah. How is it that you know when you are dreaming? There are many ways to determine this, and each has their own that suits them. For example..."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They walked and talked together, of the Fade and dreaming and other magical things, until he could no longer turn back the morning. He expected - well. A distance, between them. A... denial. But when he woke, it was with her head resting on his shoulder, and her small hand curled within his own.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Interlude: Aviva</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Aviva Lavellan was not beautiful, no matter what the bards were singing. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She had flat features and dark eyes, with no hint of brown or blue or green to catch in the sunlight through the trees. Her hair was thick and unwieldy - she ached to cut it some days, when it tangled in her helm or caught in the tree branches. Unbraided, it fell down to the tops of her thighs. But her mother had brushed her hair and braided it every day in the morning light as they sat around the breakfast fire, and she had not cut it since. If she kept her hair long, there was still a part of it that once had been brushed by her mother, and so she did not cut it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She was small, smaller than she ought to be, smaller than her sisters, who had not been born in a famine. There were too many jokes about it, too many who seemed eager to take advantage of their height, or her lack of it. But she had had brothers, once, two older and one younger, and when they roughhoused together, she learned how to be small and dodge out of the way, to be quick and nimble and light.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She was not particularly good at anything. Her mother was the Keeper, grave and quiet, smiling only with her eyes, and even then rarely. Her father made up for the lack of noise, he was gifted in song and speech and instrument and tried to pass this onto his children. She never had the knack, but she loved to sit with them, with her family, loved the twisting lines of tales and melody as their voices echoed through the forest. Her father knew everything, every story ever told, and her mother knew to watch and listen and protect them.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And they told their daughter, who was not particularly good at anything, this:</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Do not let yourself be seen.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Do not. Let. Yourself. Be. Seen.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Be quiet, be silent, be apart, be aware. Look and listen, but don't speak, don't let them hear you. Don't be seen - they will find you and burn you as a heretic, they will follow you back and slaughter the clan. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Stay out of sight. The world is dangerous, and we are hunted, we are unwanted; do not let yourself be seen. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And Aviva had nodded, solemnly, with her flat face and too-dark eyes and gone on to play with her cousins and siblings. They ran through the tops of trees, as quiet as shadows, and laughed silently with their faces and their hands. She was not particularly good at being quiet, at blending with the shadows in the dappled forest light. They had found her easily when they came, with their shouts and their metal and their biting, shemlen magic, their biting, shemlen chains.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They had been taken, and then they had been separated. She never saw her parents or her siblings again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Never let yourself be seen.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That had been a long time ago.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She was not particularly good at being the Inquisitor - but that did not seem to matter, as no one really seemed to know what the Inquisitor should be. She talked to people, she asked questions and she listened, she sat on the rooftops and made her quiet decisions. It seemed that was enough. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They said a lot of things, looking at her - they said she was strong, and they said she was cunning, and they said she was wise - but they also said she was beautiful, so </span>
  <em>
    <span>they</span>
  </em>
  <span> were not a reliable source about these things.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>In those first horrible weeks she wondered how to get away, how to run, how to escape and find the road, find the wood, never have their greedy eyes on her again. She felt as trapped as she had in the Tevinter cages, as bare as she had been in the slave market, when all the buyers had seen were dark eyes, a flat face, a piece of meat. Everyone was looking, crowding, wanting her, and she could not stand it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Josephine had saved her, and she loved her for it - loved the woman's soft hands, stained with ink, and how they had run through Josie's beautiful dark hair in frustration. Josephine had held out a mage-coat, one in Chantry white and gold, and Aviva had shook her head, </span>
  <em>
    <span>absolutely not.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I know," Josie had said, "It's a horrible part of the Game. But if you give them something else to look at, they will no longer look for you. They will no longer see you. Classic misdirection - give them a shiny coat to look at and when you take off the coat, they won't see you." Josephine held it out with a tired smile. "You'll be safe."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Like her mother, Josephine smiled with her eyes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Aviva took the coat.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That had been the beginning. After, there had been stupid things like boots and shiny armor and a uniform, but the precept had held true. If they were looking at the Inquisitor, they weren't seeing her. Which was fine. The Inquisitor could be good at whatever they wanted (unlike Aviva, who wasn't particularly good at anything.) She listened and she watched and made people talk about themselves so that she could slip away; if they talked about themselves, they were not paying attention to her. If they were not paying attention to her, she could get away.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But some of it - oh, some of it, she had to stand in front of groups of crowds and raise her staff and her voice and let them cheer for her. She hated it. That was what the Inquisitor was good for, the heavy, awful, boots and the heavy, awful, clothing and the heavy, awful eyes watching her, always watching. She put on a new face, an Inquisitor face, for them to see; she was quiet and she asked her questions and she slipped away before they thought to ask about the woman behind the face-tattoos and the shining mark in her hand. She, Aviva, was unimportant, she didn't have to be seen. She didn’t want to be seen.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Some of them saw her anyway.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cole saw her. He looked through her eyes and picked out the pieces of her heart that were sitting restless in her soul. She brought him away, into her quiet, away from where others could hear and let him ask his questions; she grew fond of him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He was wholly himself, the little spirit-boy, and could help seeing her hurt no more than she could help her breathing. Cole saw her, and it was unsettling, but - he was young, like her little cousins had been young, and though he saw her, it was through the wide acceptance of the young, and she grew to love him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Bull saw her, and she did not like it, did not like how much he took in with his single eye. At first, she tried to avoid him. The Qunari's loud, blunt ways had sent her into the safety of her silence more than once. He pressed at her boundaries, always seeing her with that one eye, seeing too much. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She started to watch him, watch the way he talked - to Cassandra, to the Chargers, to Varric and Cole. He talked to the barmaid and the gardeners, too.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She remembered the moment that she decided she liked him, as unsettling as he was. It had been a long day on a string of long days, organizing for the hordes of refugees that had come, fleeing Corypheus and the Breach and the demons. Coming to her, and the space she held for them. The advisers had abandoned her as the evening drew on, even Josie nodding off an hour before, but she sat at the table in the War Room with her hands full of papers and letters to be sent to her quartermasters for requisitions. The door had opened, quietly, and the unmistakable form of The Iron Bull stepped in. He held a tray; fresh bread, warm stew, the earthy ale that she wouldn't admit to liking, for fear of Dorian's scorn.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The Iron Bull placed the tray on the table, nodded to her, and he left.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She blinked.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Then she ate.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She asked the Iron Bull to ride out with her, and his body language was different - he shifted himself so he was rarely between her and a door, and he sat or stooped so that he no longer loomed over her. He did not bellow when her back was turned, making her jump, but instead warned her - “I’m about to shout” - so she could brace for it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He brought her trays when she would not come away to eat, and organized the camp so that all that was left for her to do was fall into her bedroll. He called it delegating; she called it room to breathe.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The next month, when all of that batch of refugees had been settled and she had slept for 16 hours straight around the clock, she slipped into the tavern and bought a mug of ale, then found a perch on a stack of crates and listened to the Chargers try to best each other with their wild stories. The Iron Bull saw her, and he nodded.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She nodded back.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So perhaps she was a disservice to her parents, letting herself be seen. She was not particularly good at following rules. She was not particularly beautiful, or inspirational, or wise or clever or strong in her magic. She was not very learned, nor very cunning. Lying up and staring at the far-away ceiling as the dawn came, Aviva Lavellan realized there was not much she was good at.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Well.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Maybe one thing, but it hardly counted as such. It wasn't a real thing, like music or magic or fighting. It was - a coincidence. Imaginary, most likely.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>If she happened to be good at one thing, it was her fortress. Skyhold.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And there was the surprise, that the elf, the Keeper's daughter, who lived in a caravan all of her life, would take so well and so quickly to mending a ruined castle halfway up into the sky. A shemlen castle, filled with their rubble and ruin and breakage, the foundations settled so deeply into the mountain that she could not tell where one ended and one began. She had been given the keeping of it, but Solas had said </span>
  <em>
    <span>the holding</span>
  </em>
  <span>, as if the stone was an empty, waiting thing, wanting.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The first few days had not been easy. What did she know about stone masonry, carpentry, about shingles and rafters and the crafting that went within? A normal fortress in this state of repair would take years to fix and a mountain of gold, and that fortress wouldn't be at the top of a nearly inaccessible mountain.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But Skyhold was... different. It took her breath away, the age of it, the wonder. It seemed older than the mountain on which it stood, and some of the original stone (and she quickly knew the feel of the original stone) had a color and texture that even her most senior stone mason could not place.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And that was another thing - she had a most senior stone mason. She had many stone masons, and roofers and carpenters and blacksmiths. They just came to her, in ones and twos, from the crowds of refugees that spilled into the mountain and the valleys beyond. Farmers, she expected, and ranchers, woodspeople and fisher folk, those who had lost their lands and streams and farms and woods to Corypheus and his armies. But stonemasons didn't live there, in the open fields, the battlegrounds. Stonemasons were from the cities, which had been holding their own.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She had heard Freya talk about it once. Freya was her most senior stone mason, and she did not look it. Her hair was gray and her eyes were gray and her skin was nearly gray from the stone dust. She looked like old boot leather and had some of her teeth, but the stone under her hands went exactly where it should go, every time. And Freya came with a pack of grandchildren, each with stone-gray eyes and bright smiles, and strong hands, stoneworkers each one, and there was no way that they should be here, in Skyhold, at the end of the world.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"We knew we had to come," Freya had told Wylan, the steward, who was old and tough and cranky and just as sweet on Freya as any younger man could have been. "Saw the crack in the sky, got the kids. We knew we had to come." She shrugged. "My daughter said I was crazy. Ha! But I knew." Freya took a big gulp of her tankard of ale and smiled. "She and the baby will be here next week."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(The daughter, when she came, was as skilled and sharp-tongued as her mother. The baby was the roundest, fattest, most spoiled Mabari hound that Aviva had ever seen.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And that was that. Some said it was the Herald who had called them, and some said the ghost of Divine Justinia, or Andraste herself. Some just shrugged and said they knew they had to come. Some didn't say anything at all. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But they were here, and they came. And they came with what they needed, even if there was no sense in it, no sense for the woodsman with the hard cedar logs to deliver them to Skyhold instead of Honnleath, where they had been ordered, or that the material slotted into place with preternatural ease.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There was no sense that the quartermaster kept "finding" bags of grain that must have "been missed in the last supply count." It made no sense that those bags of grain seemed oddly slow to empty, and that the loaves of bread seemed to multiply in the oven as they baked.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There was no sense to it, no reason.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And another thing - it was all too easy.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The first time, it could have been a fluke; that the blacksmiths had their forges set to make the tools for the wood-cutters (and carpenters and thatchers and rope makers and masons). The wood-cutters had found their logging stands from the scouts. The carpenters had worked with the masons to get the measurements just right, the masons had spoken to the scouts who had found them quarries, and she had helped collect the supplies-</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The first time, it could have been a fluke, that everything fit together in a hundred unexpected ways to go perfectly. The roof of the Great Hall was repaired, faster than anyone could believe.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But then the tower was repaired just as swiftly, with every piece falling into place.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her craftspeople thought she had done it, that they worked under Andraste’s blessing and perhaps, had things been different, she might have begun to believe with them.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Except.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Except when she walked the old hallways in the middle of the night, she could hear a soft, low stone-song, ringing in her bones.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And when she scrubbed the flagstones clean of their hundred years of moss, when she chased the leaves out of her hall and pinned the roof back in its place, when she wiped dust on her brow as she cleared out the cellars or stuck her fingers in her mouth after she had hit them with a mallet yet again - she heard it, somewhere beyond hearing, somewhere beyond her magic, somewhere between the mountain and the sky. It rang in her bones, too vast to contain, too many multitudes of wonder and glory that reached out and brushed against her face.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It saw her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Whatever it was, it saw her, it knew her, and that was frightening. It knew when she was too cold and the fire flared, it knew when she was running from a courtier and provided her with a shadowy corner to escape into, a corner that had not been there before and would not be again tomorrow. It saw her and it knew her, and it listened on the dark nights when she climbed to the top of the tallest tower and sang her father's songs to the stars, songs that were how the Dalish prayed, about being lost and being found and coming home again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It listened as she sang about coming home again. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The next day, her sister's favorite flower was blooming in the garden, filling the air with out-of-season scent. She woke with tears in her eyes and the sound of children playing, and a word on her lips that meant home.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Home. It had been a people, and a caravan, and a forest. It was gone, and yet she had been searching for it all her life. Here, the song of Skyhold reminded her of her father, and she curled up in her balcony and smiled as if it was his voice she could hear in the distance.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>As if her mother was watching her, guarding her, keeping her safe and warm.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Home was gone, but Cole laughed like her brothers and Vivienne smiled like her least favorite auntie. Josephine sat with her over reports until the foreign letters stopped dancing before her eyes, and she and Cassandra would take a cask of wine to the Seeker’s quarters and read Varric’s books aloud to one another in the evening. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Solas called her Aviva. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When she heard her name from his lips, she startled so hard that she nearly lost her staff and had to flail like a fool to catch it again. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>How had he learned that name? No one here knew that name, not a slave-name but her own name. She had not heard it spoken aloud in - how many years? And it tumbled from his lips as if he knew it, as if he cherished it. Her name in his voice, her name with his feelings entwined...</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She blamed someone. Probably Cole.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Solas had refused to acknowledge her reaction, and she discarded several revenge plans in favor of leaning into him and smiling when he woke up the next morning, a move which made him half-trip down a shallow embankment into an early spring stream.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But Solas was easy to fluster. It was easy, around him, to let her guard down. He had protected her, guarded her from the Chantry when she had fallen from the Fade. Of everyone, he talked with her about magic, about spirits (which were good) and his opinions of the Dalish (which were bad). He and Varric alone did not look at her like a wild creature, a half-feral elven thing that had to be pressed and tamed to be suitable for Chantry approval.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But Varric talked too much, to too many people. And, though she would never tell him, his stories were not quite as interesting.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She turned to Solas before she realized that she had formed the habit. She turned to him when she was homesick and needed to see anyone but another scraping shemlen, another stone-edged sky. She turned to him when it was late and her damnable hand was aching and she wanted his gentle touch to help to soothe the pain. When she wanted to hear the curious, liquid way he spoke the old words, the old elven, and when she wished to hear him complain about the newer translations. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He was so eager for someone to talk to. His voice lost that guarded tone, rang out in practiced poetry that reminded her of sitting with her father around the evening fire. She loved the way his eyes came alight, his shoulders straightened - he put aside the guise of the tattered apostate, he put aside the holier-than-thou set to his jaw, and lost himself in the rhythms of the stories.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He so wanted someone to talk to.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She so wanted to listen.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And he was so delightfully easy to tease. Sometimes he would stumble, stutter, blush. Sometimes he would answer back, so smooth and wickedly that she felt her stomach tighten in anticipation. They drifted, in a spiral, coming closer, still untouching.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It almost felt as if he sang to her, somewhere deep within her bones. Like the Breach, but older. Like Skyhold, but more sadly. She listened and she watched him and felt the pieces in her hand, the pieces she couldn't quite fit together - not yet.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Of Dresses and Dragons</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>He didn’t know how to do this.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>No one had ever been like her, like this. No one had ever brushed against him for comfort before they stepped into battle, or sit at his feet and scowl at paperwork as he studied into the night. No one for whom he would wake early in the morning to coax the sleeping fire, so she would wake to the warmth. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There had been no one for whom he would leave the Fade just to be by their side as they drank her first cup of tea. In worryingly short order, he wished to chide the sun to slide down the horizon, not so he could slip into dream, but so he could slip into her tent and lay beside her as they drifted in the evening.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It had been so long since he had even dreamed of this, of something like this. Gentle intimacy. He had scorned it as a young firebrand, in favor of using body and wits, disguise and charm as political weapons. It was as he had been taught. He had begun wars with a glancing look and ended them with a kiss; sex was a tool of the body and mind, of cut-throat pleasure and breathtaking pain. He used both in equal measure. Such were the ways of the world, of his Arlathan. He had thought he had known what it was to be wanted: sycophants lurking outside of doorways, power-seekers offering him their kisses, their bodies, their worlds. He had thought he had known what it was to be wanted, and thought himself glad to be rid of it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He had been wrong.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She would look over a crowd and see his face and smile, just a little, a smile just for him - that's what it meant, to be wanted. He would take her in his arms at the end of the day and she would sigh so deeply that the tension drained out of her body as she pressed her face into his chest. That's what it meant, to be wanted. Every time she departed, he would be at her side - all Skyhold knew that when the Inquisitor rode out, she would ride out with him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And when there was a decision that weighed heavily on her mind, she would come to him and sit barefoot on his scaffolding and say, "What do you think, Solas?" She would say, "Will you teach me?" and "I want your opinion," and take his advice into account and she would act. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She would listen.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He was important to her, and she would listen.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That’s what it meant, to be wanted.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was not easy. On the road they had more freedom, but the advisers wanted to use her marriageability as a bargaining tool - or, at least, the illusion of it. He grew to know how she looked, stony-eyed, when forced to acknowledge such undesired attention. The political maneuvers and courting gifts were too valuable to waste, but it was a game she did not play well. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He was not strong enough to teach her how to better feign her interest. He found he did not want to see her smile </span>
  <em>
    <span>his </span>
  </em>
  <span>smile at anyone else.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He found that he did not want to teach her such lies.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Then came the dress. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It began oddly, even for the Inquisition. Varric knocked repeatedly on the door to the rotunda until Solas emerged, leaving Dorian shouting down a question from above. He went out to the main hall. It was mercifully empty of the now-common crowds - mercifully, because Madame De Fer was on the dias arguing with a dress. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They were not alone. Cassandra was staring at the ceiling, biting her lip. Josephine had sunk down at a table, her head in her hands, clipboard abandoned. The Iron Bull loomed over a mug of ale at another table, sliding over to make room for Dorian as the mage flapped out of the library.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The Enchanter and the Inquisitor had a strained relationship. He was glad for it. The Orleasian reminded him too much of home, and her views about spirits were the exact sort of lies that had crippled the world in his absence. When she was irate, she became sharp and quiet. And yet the Enchanter was speaking so loudly, one could hardly call it anything but shouting. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And then he saw not just the dress, but who it was wearing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was - well. Large. Very ornate; Orleasian, no doubt. There were ruffles and lace, the skirts were somehow both paneled and sheer. There was embroidery and gold-work and netting. But the way the dress moved was achingly familiar, and the taste of her magic flashed at him from across the room like the first breath of winter. The hands were working at a half-face mask, pulling it free with a shattering cascade of pins. Beneath the gold weave of the mask emerged the Inquisitor, eyes blazing. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"No." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Madame De Fer sighed as the mask was pitched away at speed. "That's Antivian gold lace, there is no need to go in hysterics-"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"No." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The Inquisitor stripped off the white gloves and let them fall to the flagstones, then pulled at her ruffled collar until something tore and it, too, gave way. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>On the bench, The Iron Bull's voice stopped. He murmured something to Dorian, who looked at the thick discoloration of skin on the Inquisitor's wrists and neck - scars. Old and serious. Shackles? A collar?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Slave scars.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The mage paled.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Beside him, Varric let out a soft </span>
  <em>
    <span>ah </span>
  </em>
  <span>of understanding. "That explains more than it doesn't."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There was something else, something odd. It started at the top of her shoulder, brilliant red against her skin, and dipped below the neck of her dress. Another scar? One that looked like-</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The Inquisitor fade-stepped and the mass of fabric fluttered to the ground where she had been. She stood by the chair at the top of the dias, towering over them all. She wore a simple cotton shift that did nothing to hide her neck, her hands. Her dark hair spilled down her back like a river, blue-black in the light.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And somehow, like that, she looked like a queen. Her chin was high and her eyes were cold and she glared down at the Enchanter. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The other woman closed her mouth and looked away, conceding.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I will not wear a mask," the Inquisitor said. "I will not wear a dress." She looked at Josephine. "I will wear the Inquisition uniform, like everyone else."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Of course, Inquisitor," Josephine nodded with visible relief. "We will have it ready for fitting by tomorrow."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The Inquisitor nodded, once, and swept off the dias as if her simple shift were the grandest of robes, as if her scars were the finest jewels, and her hair were a veil of stars. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Varric shook his head. "She learns fast, that kid. Good on her. Halamshiral won't know what's coming." He looked at Solas. "The scars, though-"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Solas shook his head. "I knew of the one on her wrists, from when I was examining the anchor. But not of the details."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Varric tapped his fingers on his cheek. "A Dalish ice-mage sold as a slave. Dark hair, short, tree tattoo on her face. Shouldn't be too hard to find records... if you know the right people to ask, of course."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Of course," Solas said noncommittally. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"So that's why she hates Tevinter. Hmm. Poor Dorian, and he so wanted to be friends." Varric shifted. "The world continues to be full of disappointment."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"For Madame De Fer, it seems."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"She should have known the Inquisitor would see through it. Our girl isn't some Orleasian doll for the Iron Lady to dress up in fluff and frills. Can you belive, she told the Inquisitor to use make-up over her tattoos - that's when the fight really got going."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Indeed. If you'll excuse me, Varric."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Of course, of course."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He did not go directly to her, but back to the rotunda to stare at a book, unreading. When the hour had grown late enough, he walked to the kitchen to gather a tray, then brought it up to the Inquisitor's rooms.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She was not there, but the doors to the balcony were open wide, and it was little trouble to find the pathway she had made for herself (that had been made for her) up the stone crannies of the building. She lay on the top of a tower roof staring into the endless expanse of the evening sky.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He lay down next to her, not touching, and was gratified when she shifted over the last inch of space, slipping her hand into his own. He took it, running his fingers down the shape of her calluses, tracing up to her wrist, the edge of the scar, and back to her palm again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her hands were cold.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Aren't you going to ask?" </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"The story is yours to tell. Or not. It is as you wish." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She let out a breath. "I don't belong there, Solas. In court. Orlais. I'm not..." She scowled up at the stars. "I don't want to go."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I know." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I don't belong there. They only want to have me as a spectacle - the wild Elvish Inquisitor."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Why they want you is irrelevant - outside of politics, that is.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“This whole mess is politics.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He tried again. “What do you plan to do there, at the court? All eyes will be upon you; you hold such power in your hand." More true than she ever imagined. "What will you do?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Free all the servants." She let her head thunk back against the old tiles. "Free all the elves. All the servants. Have everybody take off those stupid masks and go live in the woods for a year. Be good for them."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He ignored the last bit, although she was undoubtedly right. “Speak to the servants." He ran his thumb along her palm. "Speak to the elves, and the slaves. Learn the people behind the masks, the secrets they keep there, and choose which you will bring to light, in the end. Who should lead Orlais?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Sera. Leliana's nugs. Cole."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"An excellent choice." He squeezed her hand. "Your great strength is that you listen. Do that. Hear things. In your uniform, you can blend in as much as you wish-"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Solas?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Yes?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"It was an awful dress."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I would not have made those styling choices, no."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Oh?" She turned on her stomach, into the crook of his arm, and looked up at him. "What would you have me wear?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Very little," came the words out of his mouth. "But only if I did not have to share."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She flushed in the starlight and he backpedaled. "That is to say, I think that the frippery and the fuss of Orleasian wear does not suit you as well as something simpler, something more straight forward."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She was grinning.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He let his head thunk back. "It was not good of me to say."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She gathered herself to sit up, tugged on his sleeve. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He looked at her. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I would like to."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"To what?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Wear very little for you." She shrugged. "Lay with you."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He had to look away from her. "I do not think that is wise."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Why?" She lay a hand on his sleeve, reaching out to bridge the distance. "Not to press. Just to talk."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Aviva-"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Please."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He took a breath and sat up, facing her, hands up, but he could not meet her eyes. "What would you like to know?" </span>
  <em>
    <span>What can I possibly tell you?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She hauled herself upright. "Kissing sweetly, yes." She ticked off her fingers. "Kissing passionately, no. Cuddling, yes. With clothing. Touching over clothing, no. Cuddling without clothing, no. Sleeping together, yes. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Sleeping</span>
  </em>
  <span> together, no. Cuddling on the road, yes. Cuddling when I'm being Inquisitor, no. Flirting, yes, flirting about sex-"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Inquisitor, please-"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her eyes closed, and he could no longer see the stars. "Please.” Her voice was rough, just for an instant. “Don't. Not here, don’t... call me that. If you don't want to talk about this- I just want to know what's okay for you, Solas."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Aviva." His throat was thick.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"It’s important." Her arms had wrapped around herself. "I don't want to hurt you. I don't want to drive you away."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He looked at her and despaired. "It is not... I- I should not. The Inquisition is your duty and I do not wish to be a... distraction."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Don't lie to me." She shook her head. "If you do not want this, tell me. But I will do my duty. And if you do become a distraction, if I neglect my duty - that is my judgement to make. Not yours. You need to choose only for you; don't think you know what's best for me, Solas." She looked at him and he was lost. "Don't we deserve some happiness? Here, in the ending of the world?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"It will end badly." He could not warn her, but he must. "It cannot end well."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"What will end badly? I am not asking you to marry me, Solas. We need do nothing you're not comfortable with."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He imagined, viscerally, so hard that it hurt - her ring on his finger, her smile in the morning-</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"What is it that you're so afraid of?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He- everything. Losing her. Loving her. He was afraid if he loved her, if she was real, he would not have the strength to do what he set out to, and he must. He must. He must destroy the veil, bring this broken world apart so he could reshape it properly. He had brought down the Evanuris, but his people were dull slaves, severed from the Fade, the magic that was theirs by birthright. They had lost everything, contented themselves with desperate scraps, with worshiping their slavers, branding themselves with blood-writing on their skin.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They grew old. They died.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His people were dying, and he could not lose sight of that. He had to save them. He could not afford distraction; he did not deserve to be happy. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He walked the Dalinshiral and he could not take her on that path, nor could he abandon it. He had his duty-</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She leaned forward and kissed him on his brow. "When you're ready, let me know." Then she slipped away down the scaffolding and vanished into the night.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He lay there and stared at the stars for a long, long time. An icy wind blew across him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He was cold.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>~</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cole was having none of it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You think you deserve to be unhappy." The spirit boy was standing on his desk. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Solas tugged a sheet of notes from under his foot. "It isn't so simple, Cole."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"It is. It's not your fault, you wanted them to be free. You didn't know this would happen, and now you're trying to set it right again. Why should you be so unhappy?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I have a responsibility, to fix the hurt that I have caused. Do you not see that, you, of all people?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"It's all tangled up in itself, the old hurts and the new. I don't know which would hurt more, in the end." Cole sat down, legs crossed on his notes and books.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Cole-"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Does she deserve to be unhappy?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Of course not."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"She thinks you don't want her. It hurts. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Too small, too scarred, too cold, too broken. Why would he be any different? Why would anyone ever think I was beautiful?"</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He made a small, wounded noise in the back of his throat that he did not intend. "Cole-"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>"Nobody wants you but for this thing in your hand. Without it you'd be dead or Tranquil, thrown away. He only wants you for this thing in your hand-"</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Enough, Cole!" He shouted, and the whole of the library above him fell silent with it. The spirit boy drew close, too close, and looked him directly in the eyes as he had never done before. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I think you both deserve to be happy." And he vanished.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Solas pushed his chair back from his desk and stalked away into the castle, leaving his work undone behind him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>~</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He had not come to any sort of answer by the time they left for Emprise du Lion. She gave him his space and he hated it, hated returning to his own silent bed, his own cold dreams. He knew what he must do, must step away, must stop-</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But he ached in a way he could not understand, as if he was dying of thirst, as if he was drowning. Every time she turned away, it hurt, and he was supposed to be stronger than this. He was supposed to be stronger than this, better than this, more ruthless and cold-hearted and dedicated than this.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But it hurt.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He could hardly stand it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Yet despite all of this, when word came that they were to ride out, he found he did not have it in him to refuse her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Emprise du Lion was another facet to the nightmare he lived in, further filling his resolve. More ruins, where his people had once stood. More human fools, looking at the Inquisitor as a wild thing, with her branding on her face and her company arranged behind her. More red lyrium, sick and twisting, corrupting even the air in which he breathed.  It was to be just a survey mission, checking in with the Baron after the bridge was installed. Simply a good-will mission.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Until the Baron gave the reports of the dragons. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Dragons. Plural. A plurality of dragons. A flock? A... herd?" Dorian flopped back in his chair, in their guest chambers in the castle. "And we're supposed to take care of this whole... scourge, are we?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"They don't run in packs, Dorian." The Iron Bull was sharpening his greatsword. "Just three solitary dragons. We can take care of them. One at a time. Easy."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dorian muttered something violent in Tevene. "Yes, with three mages and one mad Qunari."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Would you like us to drop you off at home?" The Iron Bull needled. "I thought you liked a challenge. You complain and bitch and yet every time, you always rise to the occasion. Or is that only in bed?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"If you think questioning my masculinity-</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Aviva didn't look up from the maps she was studying. "Have you seen a report about the ice dragon's range? The one near...Etienne’s Ring?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Ah, the Hivernal." The Iron Bull smacked his lips. "Cold resistant. Not great for you, Boss; how's your fire magic?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"About to become much better." She rubbed her forehead and Solas suddenly wished that the room was empty, that he could lay his hands on her temples and kiss her brow, that he could work the tension away-</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The Iron Bull was standing in front of him. "Come on Solas, let's go."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"And where are we going?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"To the scouting outpost to the north, to see what they know about the Hivernal's hunting grounds."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You won't drag me out of here until I've had a full night's sleep under twenty furs, in front of a hot fire," Dorian proclaimed. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Then I'll take Solas. You help the Inquisitor with her reports." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dorian looked at the Inquisitor warily, but she was nose-deep in parchment. "I don't think she likes me."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I think you're afraid of her not liking you," said The Iron Bull. "Have you ever actually talked?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I think I can hear you," Aviva said, wryly. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Come on, Solas." The Iron Bull gathered his sword. "We can play chess." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He looked at the Inquisitor, who glanced up and nodded.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Excellent," said The Iron Bull. “And Dorian, you can stay here and get warm. Chat with the boss.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Yes," said Dorian dryly. "How fun."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>~</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was late, but the sun had set long ago and the full moon glared over the whiteness of the landscape. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Then: "Solas. Have you decided what you're going to do about the Inquisitor?" </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I beg your pardon?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Don't play dumb for my sake. She wants you. You want her. Something is stopping you. Have you decided what you're going to do?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I fail to see how it is any of your business."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Well, it is.” The Iron Bull gave him no ground. “In fact, it's everyone's business. And you don't have to like it, you don't have to talk about it, but the choice you make, and how you make it, matters. To everyone."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"If you believe-"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Our boss is currently the most important person in the entire world. You get that. It's not politics, it's not religion - she's the only one who can seal the rifts, stop the breach. And this puts pressure on her shoulders, pressure that we're here to stop."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"And the distractions of a relationship-"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"She's a person, Solas." If The Iron Bull interrupted him again, he would summon as many fear-spirits as he could in a ten foot radius and say go. But the qunari continued. "She's not a spirit, and she's not some weird Fade hermit like you. She needs people. Friends. Support. People to tell her that she's doing a good job, she's important and wanted and beautiful - the stuff people need."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Ah, and she and her adoring fans will then be able to stop Corypheus once and for all! Why didn't I think of that? Empty praise, and she'll be set for eternity." He dripped sarcasm.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The Iron Bull growled in frustration. "She lost her family, she lost her home. She was sold into slavery, and I don't think I need to draw you a picture of what that looked like, do I? And now she's stuck here, with us, and she needs somewhere where she can know that she is safe." The Qunari drew closer, and the moonlight glinted off of his sword. "She didn't ask for this, she didn't want it, but she took it, and she bears that weight every day. She needs a place - a person - where she can put that aside. And if you aren't going to do that, if you tell her she's too important to love, or too Dalish to care about or whatever- then you need to step aside and let someone else do the job."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"What? You?" Solas scoffed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Maybe me. Maybe not. Maybe Josephine. Maybe no one at all; maybe she'll read bad romance novels with Cassandra and sit by the fire with Varric and try to teach that weird spirit kid more poetry. But what she doesn't need is to be strung along while you wrestle with whatever it is you aren't telling her."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You overstep yourself." His voice was cold and his fingers hot with anger.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Good." The Iron Bull stomped on through the snow. "Someone has to get you out of your head. You can play ‘will I, won't I’ with anyone else in the world, but not her. Not now." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He kept walking, and left Solas behind.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>~</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He did not return to the fortress until morning, when his anger had cooled and his head had stopped spinning. But there was no time to rest; they rode out to fight a dragon. He watched everyone; Dorian and the Inquisitor, now sharing sly jokes with one another. The Iron Bull, who went over the Inquisitor's armor, strap by strap, to ensure all was in place, who stuffed potions in her pockets and let his hand linger a little too long on the small of her back as they prepared. Solas bristled, possessive of something he had no right to claim, and knew this, and hated the feeling all the more for it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Then The Iron Bull looked back and gave him a wink - somehow - with one singular eye, and Solas stepped forward and took the Inquisitor's hand. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She looked at him, baffled, then looked back at The Iron Bull. Then back at him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"No," she said to him, and withdrew her hand. Then, to The Iron Bull, "No. Absolutely not. You start this nonsense, Bull, and I will end it. And you."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The Qunari just raised his hands. "Just wanted you to know that Dorian and I are here for you."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her eyebrows shot up. "Dorian doesn't like women."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"It's not straight if there's another guy in with you-"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Enough!" She snapped. The Iron Bull was grinning. "Bull. I am not currently available for flirting or sharing or fighting over or any of it. If that changes, and I'm interested, I will let you know. Are we clear?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Yes ma'am," The Iron Bull rumbled. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Solas. Are we clear?" </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Crystal." He tried not to grit his teeth.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dorian was laughing. "It is a lot of fun, my dear-" </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I will feed all three of you to the dragon."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Ah, yes. Message clear." Dorian and the Iron Bull exchanged a small smile with one another and Solas turned away. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dragon. Before revenge, there was a dragon to face.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Then, after that one, there was another dragon.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And another. This one had dragonlings.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Back at camp, Solas decided that he would be never be warm again. He would never go in the snow again. He would banish snow. He would remake the world and banish the snow. And dragons. He had taken a blast of ice-magic that tossed him unceremoniously into a pile of stones, and he would be bruised and sore for a week. He was too tired to think about anything except a dry tunic and pants.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Aviva grumbled beside him, leaning on her staff. She was tired to the point of exhaustion, but safe. Whole. The Iron Bull, having been patched up with most of their stock of potions, was the only one smiling - Solas assumed from blood loss. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Once they had arrived back at camp, Dorian pitched over. He was lying in the snow, staring up at the sky, and generally complaining about everything.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Aviva kicked him with the side of her boot. "Up. Up, Dorian."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Ghastly woman. Leave me to die in peace."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The Iron Bull, a pack slung over one shoulder, picked up the startled Tevinter mage and slung him over the other. "We're going to the hot spring," he announced.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Back over the bridge?" Dorian said, his voice muffled. "We were just there. And there's a dragon corpse, you know."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Yes. It will be warm and good for you. And good for me. Solas? Boss? Want to come?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Solas blinked, too exhausted to stuff down the flash of the memory that arose of a different hot spring, long ago, and those he had dallied with there. Except, instead of those old faces, he imagined-</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>No. Absolutely not.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Aviva sighed. "I have to give directions to the scouts... and make sure our requisitions are ready. We need more potions."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The Iron Bull frowned. “We fought three dragons. Three. You should take a break.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I will.” She rubbed her forehead. “In a little while.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Well, if you want to go to the hot springs later, let me know, and I'll be happy to escort you."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Bull-"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"As a guard!" He raised his hands in defense. Dorian, hanging loosely, squawked. "Stand watch. You know." He did the one-eyed wink again and walked back out of camp, Dorian still on one shoulder.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Solas looked at Aviva. She looked back at him, and he could see the exhausted tension in her eyes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When he said nothing, she turned and walked away.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>~</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He went to the hot springs himself, that night. The cold bit his bones and his muscles ached - and there was no peace to be found in the camp, none at all. He had lay in the tent he shared with the Inquisitor, watching the gray daylight fade across the sky, too tired to sleep. He could hear her voice in the command shelter, murmuring, and couldn't think but to remember the weariness in her eyes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The Iron Bull's words kept running through his mind like a storm.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>At dusk, he gathered a pack and slipped out of the tent. The command shelter glowed with light - he could see her, still in her armored robes, deep in conversation. There was mud on her face and she shook her head, as if to clear a headache.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He could not stand it, seeing her struggle against these things of his own making. It was his fault.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He could not stand it, how powerless he was.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He slipped away. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The bridge was colder than he remembered, the winds whipping across its expanse. The coliseum of the hot spring baths stood in ruins on the other end, already divested of the dragon corpse. Utterly empty. He put out the thousand things that crowded his head - Dorian and The Iron Bull, the people, his people, who had lived here before, how the world had once been green and warm - and he stripped off and laid his clothes on the old stone.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The water brought him back to life again. It cradled him, the heat soaking into his muscles as he stepped further and further in. Oh, he was tired. He ached. The water took the aches away, settling him in his own skin, soothing away all of the spinning, wild-edged thoughts and letting him simply float.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Simply breathe.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Time slipped away, in the water and the heat, the steam twining up into the star-strewn sky above.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sound travels further through the water; her footsteps on the stone, into the pool. He did not need to hear her. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He knew she was coming. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He had enough time. To get dressed. To go. To not be seen. He knew she was coming, and he knew he should go-</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But something deep inside him, something loosened by the water and the words and the line of her shoulder as she had turned away from him - something deep inside him said firmly, </span>
  <em>
    <span>no.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I want her.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The thought cut through the heat and the steam, the tension and the overlapping thoughts; they fell away as if sheared by a knife. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I want this.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I choose this.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And so he stayed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He stood, when he felt her drawing near, when he felt her footsteps in the stone, and had the flicker of an old emotion, old anxiety. Would she - would she want him? He was hardly the peak of attraction, in this time. Too large, too broad, his features too sharp and his hair, or lack of it -</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She walked through the doorway and stopped.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Solas."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He nodded. He raised a hand to her, an invitation.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She bit her bottom lip and did not move. Then, jerkily, she nodded.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. (NSFW): Snow and Surrender</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>She lay her pack on the ground slowly, carefully, as if he were a wild thing, prone to run with any sudden movements. Her eyes flickered across him, tracing the lines of his shoulder, his side, his- well. Her cheeks darkened and her eyes were smiling.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She came and sat at the edge of the pool, still so slowly, and he went through the water to stand in front of her. A gift, a curse, an offering. She reached out, touched the curve of his shoulder. Her fingers were cold and trembling and they went to his cheek, turned his face to meet hers. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was a question there - </span>
  <em>
    <span>are you sure?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He nodded.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The smile that dawned on her face was - bright, heartbreaking in its surprise, in its wonder. She drew in a ragged breath and pressed her forehead to his brow; when she sighed it was as if a thousand tons had lifted from her shoulders. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>As if she had just laid the Inquisition on the floor beside her pack. </span>
  <em>
    <span>She needs a place to be safe,</span>
  </em>
  <span> Bull had said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Solas put the thought softly aside.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I will need to go slow," she was murmuring, the pads of her fingers tracing down the wet lines of his arms. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Of course," he promised, breathing. His heart was pounding and there was fire in his skin where she touched him. Slow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Is there anything you need me to know?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Hmm?" He did not understand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Here is what I need you to know," The words spilled out, a wealth of words, from her. "Don't restrain me, pin my arms. Don't, ah, put your weight on my chest, cut off my breath." She closed her eyes. "Don't leave me alone - after. Stay with me a while."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Yes." He wanted her, out of those robes and in his arms, the feeling of her pressed against him, the touch of his hands on her skin - but he made himself remember. Don't pin. Don't cut off breath. Don't leave alone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He never wanted to leave her alone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Is there anything like that that I should know?" She was asking him. Checking in with him. Oh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But he was hers to do anything she wished, anything- "No pain," he said, and the words surprised him, freed by the motion of her hands across his skin. "Another time, maybe. Not tonight. No... I do not, not like, name calling. Humiliation."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Mm," she murmured, and he wanted to feel that sound against the line of his throat and knew in equal measure, once that happened, he would not think again for a long time. "Do you like sweet names? Not </span>
  <em>
    <span>my pet</span>
  </em>
  <span>, but,” and she drew her lips up to his ear, “</span>
  <em>
    <span>my love?</span>
  </em>
  <span>"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His breath caught in his throat and made the most undignified sound, but he caught her hands in his own; he needed to tell her this, this was important. "Do not say things you do not mean," he asked and it felt like begging. "No lover's lies, sweet words that will be only taken back again, when we are done. Do not say things you do not mean."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I promise." She leaned forward and kissed his brow and his eyes prickled with tears for the pain and the sweetness. "I promise."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"How, how far do you wish to go?" He was not used to this, the gentle sway of words, building. He needed her, in his arms, the feel of her - but he had to keep her safe and for that, he had to know. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I'd like to taste you," she said, and she did, kissing him and drawing him in. Her armored robes were cold and dirty against his skin, but he stepped into her. She uncrossed her feet, dangling her legs over the lip of the pool and drawing him in between them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I'd like to touch you," she said, and she did. Her half gloves were rough and cold and damp, but the feel of her fingers down his back made him shiver in want. He felt imminently exposed, with him so bare and her so clothed - exposed and vulnerable and he wanted so much that he ached.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I'd like to feel you inside me," she said and her hand slid down into the water to lightly brush the inside of his thigh and his knees almost buckled with it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Yes."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her hand slid away and he drew in a breath. "What would you like?" she asked wickedly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You." He could not think of anything else.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She grinned and blushed and he knew he would never see anything more beautiful. "You'll have to unwrap me, first." She pulled back - he almost whined in protest - and presented him her hand, still in her half-glove, the leather now soaked from the pool. "Would you like to help?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He met her eyes and nodded and felt her shiver in delight under his gaze. He did not look away as he unpicked the wet lacing and she made a soft sound when the glove fell. He brought her palm up to his lips and kissed it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He decided he could live and die for that soft, wanting sound.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She ran her bare hand over the curve of his head, down his neck, her fingers trailing down his breastbone to his navel. "Thank you," she whispered, smiling, and gave him her other gloved hand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When he had fumbled off the laces there, she took his face, drew him to her, kissed him with a slow thoroughness that made his knees shake, made the fire in his belly build to a white heat. When she drew back, he twisted his hands in the fabric of her damnable robes and did not dare to let go. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She laughed against his lips and reached down around him to peel off her now-very-wet boots, to start fumbling at the wrappings that bound her calves. He replaced her hands with his own, unwinding the cloth and kissing each band of pale skin as it was revealed, from the arch of her instep on up. She made a lovely noise at that and he repeated the motion on the other side, meeting her eyes as he pressed his lips against her skin, enjoying the soft curses, soft sounds of want he met there.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When the wrappings were undone, she unbuckled her armor; pauldrons and gauntlets, the thick waist-belt, her tunic and skirts. The pile of clothing grew on the stone floor. This morning he had been glad of all her armor and protection. Now he growled at more layers, more layers, more layers-! He helped her peel off her chain-mail shirt, then the quilted coat and trousers beneath it, until she wore only her thin under-shift, kneeling at the edge of the pool.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He reached for that too - and then he stopped. Took a breath, let it out again. Waited for her permission.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She took his hands and placed them on the hem of the soft cotton.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He slowly drew it over her head. Freed, she pressed her face into his collarbone and wrapped her arms around him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her skin - feeling her, against him, her skin against his own? He had no thoughts left, just held, clung to her as if the world had lost its sense, as if north had no direction, as if he had been dying alone in a desert and she was the rain that had saved him. His muscles melted, his strength melted, and he buried his face in the nape of her neck and felt his eyes prick once more with an emotion he did not want to name.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He did not want to let go, even as the heat and the feeling and her touch threatened to undo him. He scooped her up (she squeaked) and brought her to the shallow lip of the pool's entrance, where he could sit, bowed around her and just - hold on. Just hold on. She hummed in contentment, wrapping her arms around him, curling in as close as she could be.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He could stay here like this forever. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Aviva, however, had other plans; her hands shifting up and down his back, the planes of his sides. He stirred under her touch and ran the tips of his fingers down her neck (over the thick banded scar), her back, the curve of her hip and up again. Off her shoulder, the feeling of her changed and he raised his head to see he traced another scar, red and creeping, that branched down her back like-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Lightning," she said, still in his arms. She drew her hands in close to herself, rubbed her wrists self-consciously. "It came from mage lightning."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He frowned. "May I kiss it?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Hmm?" She looked up at him, blinked, and nodded. He pressed a gentle kiss to the top of the mark and could feel her smile.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"What's this?" he asked, brushing his fingertips over a yellowing-purple patch on her ribs. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She twisted and winced, craning her neck. "Ah, sparring with Cassandra. I wasn't fast enough."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He leaned in and kissed it, just a butterfly-brush of lips on her skin. Then, "What's this?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She turned her arm, "A scrape from the little dragonling?" and then laughed as he kissed it, too. "Kissing all my hurts away?" </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He raised an eyebrow. "What's this?" </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Mud, that's mud - don't kiss it, eww!" She gave him a half-push and he grinned. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Mm, as you say."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Are you ever going to let me in the water, or just keep me on your lap?" She wiggled to demonstrate, and he failed to bite back a low sound. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"One more," he said and, aching, cupped her small breast. He ran a thumb over her nipple and said, as she choked off a breath, "What's this?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"N-not a hurt." Her breath was short. "A-are you going to-?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"May I?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Oh please-" and he took her into his mouth, delighting in her as he did, in the way her hips moved against him, in her taste and the feel of her in his mouth, in his hands. He had not thought of this in a long, long, long time, but the sense-memory was still there, underneath, and the skill of how to touch and tease and listen.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The most important thing was to listen. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He had been known for his clever tongue, once, and he sought to use that knowledge well again, learning how to flick his tongue against breast to make her cry out against him, how to use his lips and the edge of his teeth, his thumb on her pebbled flesh, his palms on her soft skin.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After an eternity folded into an instant she stopped him, drew him back. "Let me breathe, Solas," she laughed, then undermined herself by kissing him and kissing him and kissing him, little kisses on the tips of each finger, the center of his palm, the inside of his wrist and the crease of his elbow, the top of his shoulder and the curve of his neck. She kissed the line of his throat, the hollow of his ear, the edge of his jaw and the corner of his lips and he turned to her like to the sun-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And she slipped off of his lap into the water. Away. The absence of her was a blow, like the loss of a limb - he reached for her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She caught his hand. "Come on," she said, and he could breathe again, could follow her to the deeper, wide cups of stone set into the water. She leaned against the stone and drew him in so that his head lay on her shoulder, his back pressed up against her front. She sat him between her legs, all his weight against her in the water and he did not like it, not one small bit. He could not see her, he could not touch her, and he twisted in protest.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her arms tightened around him. "Let me hold you?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Aviva-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Let me hold you," she said into the top of his head like a prayer. He nodded once, tense, untethered and ungrounded, floating. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I’ve got you," she murmured and he closed his eyes and tried to remember what it felt like to surrender. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He did not like giving up control. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wanted, wanted to touch, to turn, to tease, to please her. He wanted to show her, wanted to prove to her. He wanted to be good for her, to coax more of those soft noises from her with his new-found eagerness, with his old-won skill. He wanted, he wanted, he wanted-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her hands were trailing up and down his chest, and her thighs, strong and soft, cradled his weight in the water. She kissed the top of his head and continued her exploration, running her hands up and down the length of his arms, the planes of his chest, and he felt muscles unwind that he did not even remember having.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was... odd. He didn't fight it, let the warmth of the water soak into him, let the heat of her touch soak into him. Where her hands passed, they soothed aches he had forgotten, rods of steel in his spine that softened into mere muscle and bone, then softened further still as if he was melting slowly into the earth-warmed water. There was no sound but their breath mingling and the slow lap of water on stone; the air tasted like heat and wet and the tang of spring water, and the only feeling in the world was the way that she was touching him. Soft and sweet, soothing, an exploration of his shape; she was taking her time with him, the thought rose in his mind and passed away again. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Thank you." </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The words floated in the air, and he turned his head, up and back but couldn't catch sight of her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She lay her cheek against the curve of his head. "It has been... a long time since I've done this. I'm nervous." The confession sank into his stomach, both warm and cold. "It helps, when you let me go slow. Keep control."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You may have it," he said, and realized that he meant it. Then, "I would have wondered if you were weary. Of control. Always making decisions."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She hummed in agreement, and the sound went right through him. "I am." Her hands weren't soothing any longer - they were bolder, hungrier on his skin. "Perhaps, another time, when we know how this goes, I will ask you to take the lead. To take care of me." Her hand traced down his chest and back up again, always back up again, he would die from it. "Is that something you like?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Yes," he breathed, and then remembered the thread of the conversation. "I am used to being in control." It felt like a confession.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"It's easier to keep yourself safe."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He turned in her arms and she let him, drawing herself in close, as if to protect herself from her confession. He put a finger under her chin, asked her to meet his eyes - and she did. There was old hurt there, and he ached to see it. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I will do anything to keep you safe. </span>
  </em>
  <span>The words battered at him for release, but choked in his throat. Instead, he ducked his head, ducked his lips to the curve of her ear. "What can I do for you?" </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Let me touch you?" she asked, and her hands were right there. He nodded…. and she moved away. He was going to die from it, from wanting.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She stood in their little cup of water, stood and sat on the edge, legs wide, and patted the stone before her. He made a soft noise and came to her, but she turned him around again, sat him in between her legs outside the water so she had full freedom, to wrap her arms around his torso and touch the whole front of him, and again he could not see her, could not touch, could only watch her hands on his skin drifting lower and lower and lower-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He was going to die from it, he had said it but this time he was, from the teasing swirls she traced on his hips, from the catch of her nails on the inside of his thighs. He had softened from the heat of the water but now, on the lip of stone, her arms around him, he was so hard that it hurt. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He tried to remember what it felt like to breathe, to receive, to surrender.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You feel so good." Her voice, her lips pressed against the curve of his back. "Your skin in my hands. You feel so good." The praise, the reassurance made something come loose in his chest. He could feel the warmth of her hands ghosting along the length of him - he was not patient, he was not patient, he was not patient-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Can I touch-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"</span>
  <em>
    <span>Yes</span>
  </em>
  <span>." And she did, mercifully she did and her hands on him were rough and strong and warm and the overwhelming force of it nearly tipped him into orgasm, too soon, too soon. He bit back a curse (what it feels like to surrender) and gave himself over; she felt the line of tension running through him and softened her touch, murmuring soft nonsense, "I've got you, so lovely, I've got you-" and he did not come but barely, the muscles in his thighs shaking.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He remembered what it felt like to surrender. His thighs spread open, open, open and her hands on him, stroking and circling and touching and reaching and her voice murmuring wonder and praise from behind him. She - he had thought himself gifted in these arts but she brought him there and held him there, right against the brink, close enough to taste it and claw back from it, he did not want to come, not yet, not yet-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Are you close?" she asked and his answer was a groan, a sob. She laughed into his shoulder and her hands stopped their movement and he dropped his head back in a futile effort to breathe. What had he done, what had he gotten into-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You're so wonderfully reactive," she teased and did something with her hand that made him gasp.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Please," he pleaded.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Please what?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"A breath," he said, and took one. "I want, I want to touch you."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her hands on her shoulders, turning him towards her. Her braids had started to come undone, and her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were dancing. She lay down on the uncut stone, she should be on silken sheets and she lay like a queen on the old broken stone and he would do anything to keep her here and safe and smiling like this at him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Can I taste you?" he asked and she bit her lip and nodded and said, "Gods, yes," as if she liked the thought, as if she wanted him that badly and he could hardly breathe again for it. He lifted one of her small feet and kissed the arch of her foot, then higher, echoing the line of kisses he had traced before. This time there was no clothing in his way. She made soft, low sounds as he drew closer into her, teasing, nosing and licking and lipping the soft, sensitive skin on the inside of her thighs. She wiggled underneath him, trying desperately to get his touch where she wanted it. He resisted, wicked and wild with the smell of her, and she tried to push his head with her hands, making him laugh. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But then she started pleading. "Please, Solas, please, please, please," and he was lost, powerless, undone and unable to resist; he stroked down her center with the broad width of his tongue and the sound she made was greater than all the treasures of Arlathan combined.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He had once been known for his clever tongue. He knew how to do this, calling old memories, circling the knot of nerves with broad strokes and fine, first one way and then back again. The soft, downy hair of her mound pressed against him as she writhed; he moved to pin her hips and then remembered as she began to stiffen, </span>
  <em>
    <span>don't restrain me,</span>
  </em>
  <span> and pulled back again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The taste of her was perfect, hot and bright in his nose, on his tongue, in his skin and he grew light-headed with it until he remembered how to bury himself within her and still breathe. He wanted, wanted, to push her right to the brink and over it, to feel her come around him with his head between her thighs - but he remembered as her soft cries quieted, </span>
  <em>
    <span>I will need to go slow</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and he pulled back again. Slow. He could do slow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Slow but not therefore gentle - pressed into her body, he listened with every fiber of his being, listened to the way she moved and cried and the weight of her hands on his head, urging him on. Slow, firm strokes and she relaxed and opened to him, her voice deepening with need. Soft, light touches and her voice got higher pitched, her hips moving away from his assault. So he moved with her, slow and firm, and listened when she tugged at one of his hands, rearranged his weight so he could tease a circle around her opening with a finger as he tasted. She was wet and flushed and beautiful and utterly perfect; he slipped the very tip of his finger within her and the string of words above him slid, even more desperate. For a quiet thing, she was so loud! And he loved it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was just after his neck was beginning to cramp (stupid, weak, foolish mortal body) that he felt her push on his head, felt her pull away and he stopped an undignified whine of protest from leaving his throat. But she was urging him up, up to her and kissing her taste from his lips, murmuring sweet and wonderful things with the edge of wonder to her voice that let him know she meant it. "You're wonderful, you're lovely, you're so, so good, you're amazing, gods Solas, you're incredible, you make me feel so good." The praise mixed with pleasure, of kisses and her words and her body pressed against his own. He did not let her go as she turned them, so his hot skin lay on the wet stone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wished for a moment, a flickering, impossible wish - that they were somewhere with the finery, the luxury, the dignity she deserved. He had courted scoundrels and villains and the worst of heartless criminals, brought them to his bed for power or politics, pleasure or pain. The sheets had been wind-woven silk, the mattress stuffed with shimmering cloud; there had been vials of heavenly liquor for thirst, and tidbits that could serve to tempt the Divine herself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Aviva smiled down at him in their bower; the biting smell of the mineral water, the broken stone digging into his hip, the cold, cold winds that tore their way through the ruins. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She deserved so much more, and she didn't seem to know it. She just smiled, resting her head on his chest, and he held her there. "How are you doing?" she asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He leaned down to kiss her as an answer - there were no syllables to capture the wildness and wonder, the heart-breaking joy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She grinned. "Would you like to keep going?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Yes," he said, and he moved underneath her. “You?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her eyes fluttered closed, "Gods yes," she agreed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wished she would stop cursing like that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But before - ah, before. He gathered his wits from wherever they had gone as they frayed. "I, ah, let me cast the spell-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"The spell?" She stilled, frozen on top him, and there was something like panic running down her spine.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He propped himself up on his elbows, looking at her. "On myself, for infertility and to prevent untoward disease."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She scowled. "You have a version of that spell?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Of course."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"The only one I know works on the uterus." She had her academic-learning face on, oh he loved her, but this was not the time-!</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"There is a version of the spell for every configuration of anatomy," he told her, and let the slipping syllables form, hot with power, twisting in his core. The cast ended with a satisfying snap - he had gotten very, very good at this spell, in his day.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She was murmuring the spell to herself, distracted. "Fascinating." He arched his hips again beneath her and her eyes closed, "Fuck-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Please," he was begging. He, Fen'Harel, The Dread Wolf, Father of Lies and King of Shadows, was trapped between the wet stone floor of the ruined baths and the body of his lover and he was begging her to take him, and the irony of it would kill him if he wasn't already dead, "Please-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She grinned and rolled her hips on top of him, grinding against him, his length trapped between them, but not giving him what he craved. He let his head thunk back against the stone and began a soft litany of curses, one for every rocking motion of her hips and she laughed at his invention.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then she slipped a hand between them, pressed him up against her opening.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He froze, eyes flying wide open. Her grin was wicked, but her eyes were asking him a question: </span>
  <em>
    <span>do you want this, is this okay?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>"Please-" His voice cracked and he cried out as she sank down around him, voice rough, and he clung to her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her eyes were closed and her voice was heavy, she bowed forward until their foreheads touched. "Yes," she said, low in her throat and moved her hips. "Oh yes. Ah!"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He had moved his hips; she swore and met his movement, like breathing, like dancing, like the cresting of a wave. He rose and fell and she moved with him; she moved and he could do nothing but follow, holding her like an anchor as they soared. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He was not going to last and she felt it, grinning. "Are you going to come for me, beautiful?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I," he had no words, he had no breath, he could not stop or he would die, "You-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come for me," she whispered, wild and wicked and wonderful and he scrabbled to hold on. "Let me feel you come."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He couldn't, he mustn't, he had to, he-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Come."</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Remember what it feels like to surrender-</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He did, horribly, wonderfully, wildly, like the snapping of a frayed rope or the turning of the tide, like the inevitable rise of the moon over the ocean. He came and she had him, held him, kept him from being washed away. She drew him close, into her arms, and he buried his face in the curve of her neck as the tremors blew through him. He shook; he should have settled, but he shook throughout his whole body, the pleasure crashing over him and a hot, tight ball lodging in his throat. His eyes were pricking, burning, flowing over; he clung to her and he could not stop shaking-!</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She held him, rocked him gently. Murmured soft things in the air. "I've got you, I've got you, so good for me, so lovely; you feel so good inside me, you're so beautiful when you come! I've got you, so lovely, my darling. You're alright."</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>What it feels like to surrender</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He buried his head in her chest and let the feelings wreck him like a storm.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She held him to her tightly, and told him he was wonderful, he was beautiful, he was lovely, was a gift. </span>
  <em>
    <span>No lover's lies,</span>
  </em>
  <span> he asked her, and she had promised, so he knew what she said must be true.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After all, she had not said </span>
  <em>
    <span>my love. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Good.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was nothing he deserved.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Wisdom</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Act III could be titled "The Pasts." Wildly unbeta-d, as I was fighting with Chapter 10 for eleven days and 10k words until I got it down right and I have absolutely no chill.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>He dreamed of Wisdom, though he knew not why. That had been a long time ago. Before his long sleep. Before the Veil. Before Fen'Harel, and the Valley, before he knew the spell to remove slave-brands better than he knew his own name.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Before he had truly had a name.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He had met them sitting by a river, the water singing a little song about sun and mud and growing things. They had been peering into the water with huge, wide eyes, but he could not see anything but the running of the stream.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"What are you doing?" he had asked (only, then, he wasn't yet </span>
  <em>
    <span>he</span>
  </em>
  <span>, still an </span>
  <em>
    <span>it</span>
  </em>
  <span> or a </span>
  <em>
    <span>them</span>
  </em>
  <span>, but in his dream he wore his new face).</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"There is a fish who is born here," said Wisdom, "Who returns here every spring to lay her eggs. She travels far; how does she know how to return?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He rested on the bank and stared at the flowing stream. "How does she do it?" He had not thought about fish before. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The older spirit turned to him. "You're a young thing," they said. "I am Wisdom. Who are you?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Me too," he chirped happily. "I'm Wisdom, too."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Well met, little one," and they had smiled. "Well met."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"How does the fish find her way home again?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I do not know," said Wisdom. "How shall we ask her?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>~</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wisdom sat by the same riverbank, listening to the wind. "Tell me, little one," they said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And he had, swinging his new-made legs over the stream. He told her about </span>
  <em>
    <span>bodies</span>
  </em>
  <span> and </span>
  <em>
    <span>court</span>
  </em>
  <span>, about </span>
  <em>
    <span>elves</span>
  </em>
  <span> and </span>
  <em>
    <span>Mythal</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"She was like us once," he said in his slight voice, the words tumbling over one another. "And she's going to show me how to be just like her. Now I have a body and I can grow and grow and grow and change, but I couldn't change when I was just Wisdom, I had to stay the same, but I didn't want to stay the same, because I couldn't learn! Are you always going to stay the same?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wisdom smiled, a small smile. "I have enough here to learn," they said. Their eyes slid over his brow, where a tall tree branched in blood-stark writing. "What do they call you now?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He puffed out his narrow chest as far as it could go. "My name is Solas," he told them. "My name is Pride."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>~</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He strode up and down the riverbank, shouting, until his voice was hoarse and he had worn a new path through the soft moss. His hands were fine and slender and clean, and his robes were as grand as any slave could wish for.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At length, he grew short of breath, short of profanities, short of temper. He threw himself down on the rocks next to Wisdom, wrapping himself in his fire-lined brocade. "What shall I do?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wisdom said nothing. Under their silence, he heard the river singing, of mud and water and sun.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I need to get free of her." He rubbed his slave-brand on his brow, thought about tearing with his nails to see if he could rip the mark from his skin. Anything, to be free of Mythal.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This time, Wisdom nodded. "I can teach you. How to remove the blood-writing."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He stopped rubbing. "I can be free?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wisdom nodded once more.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His hand tightened into a fist. "Do it," he said. "Teach me."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>~</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There were ashes in the air. The little stream muttered darkly to itself, but still Wisdom sat, with their gentle, open silence, waiting for him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wore leather and metal and fur. His head was high, but his shoulders bowed. He waited for them to address him, and they did not.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He sat. Here, now, there was time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Fen'Harel," Wisdom said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"That is what they call me." He tugged off his gauntlets and tossed them aside, leaning back to stare up into the magnificent, spiraling shapes of the wind in the air. "May I sit with you awhile?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They nodded, and the two of them listened to the muttering of the river.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I am afraid," he said into the silence. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wisdom reached out and took him by the hand. Night came and they sat like that, together.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>~</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He dreamed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was not enough left of him to do anything more than dream. He dreamt, and hoped he would not awaken. Hoped that he would wither away, until his spirit became a wisp, became a memory, became nothing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He sat by a riverbank. The water did not sing. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>A figure sat and watched him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He said, "I have done a terrible thing."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The figure nodded, once.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He said, "Do you remember my name?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The figure said, "Do you?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He shook his head, and the figure nodded. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Once," they said, "Your name was Wisdom."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"May I sit with you?" said the man, who was no longer a spirit named Wisdom.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The figure nodded, and he did.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>~</span>
</p><p>
  <span>An apostate named Solas woke up in a cold sweat and the taste of blood on his tongue.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>No-!</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>The cry did not stop. Not as he told Aviva, and she grew white with rage. Not as he rode out on his horrible mare, who listened, for once, to the set in his spine and did not try to shy at every leaf, every gust as they rode off through the night. Solas rode and he prayed, though he knew not how to pray. He found the most common, most absurd of prayers on his lips, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Dread Wolf, pass them by.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Whatever he touched, he destroyed; not Wisdom. Not them, not them.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Pass them by</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But his fate had never been as kind as that. As good as that. Solas rode and saw the blackened bodies, the twisted forms, the circle and the mages and the bindings. He freed them, and he raged.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then he sat and held Wisdom's hand as they asked him in the old tongue. &lt;Help me die.&gt;</span>
</p><p>
  <span>&lt;You must endure. Help me to die.&gt;</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Dread Wolf, pass us by.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He reached out with a hand that was steady, and-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>&lt;Stop!&gt;</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Inquisitor ran forward, skidding with bare feet in the mud. Her slave-brand was dark in the sunlight; it was too beautiful a day for such pain.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>&lt;Stop,&gt; she demanded, and her words were coarse and strange in the true tongue. &lt;I help.&gt;</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wisdom flickered; they were hurting.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>&lt;There is nothing you can do&gt; he said darkly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I can help," the Inquisitor said in common, and the words made no sense to his ears. &lt;I can help.&gt;</span>
</p><p>
  <span>&lt;Child,&gt; said Wisdom, &lt;Everything must change.&gt;</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Inquisitor - Aviva - shook her head. &lt;Please. Try.&gt; She looked at him, and seemed as distant as a stranger. &lt;Solas, let me try.&gt;</span>
</p><p>
  <span>&lt;Even I am powerless here.&gt; </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But the Inquisitor, the fragmented strip of a nightmare that did not exist, </span>
  <em>
    <span>she was not real,</span>
  </em>
  <span> Aviva Lavellan, reached out to Wisdom and pleaded, &lt;Let me try.&gt;</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He turned away but - Wisdom extended their hand, and Aviva took it in her own, flashing green-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Like life in the empty, bitter snow-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was an explosion.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The power ripped through him like a shot, throwing him back. His head slammed against the ground. He could not see, could not feel, could taste nothing but blood and bile on his lips. What had happened, what had happened, what had-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He was in the Fade? </span>
  <em>
    <span>Impossible!</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>His vision cleared. He was staring at a sky that turned with the moving of the wind; he could hear the river singing.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Impossible.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He could hear the river singing. It was a song of mud and stone and summer sunshine.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He could hear the river singing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He sat up, though his body fought him. The colors were as bright as he remembered them. The grass under his hands felt - alive. Like nothing since the Fall had felt alive. He was in the Fade and yet he was lying on the earth and the Veil-</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>This cannot be.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Solas, who once had a different name, watched the world around him. The colors faded to the dull shades of gray that had haunted him since he had awoken. He strained, but the river did not sing. The Veil descended around him like a shroud, burying his senses once again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Wisdom-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wisdom stood, and Aviva stood beside them, and they were clothed in light and glory. Wisdom raised one hand and marveled at its shape, strong and holding in the afternoon sun. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They turned to Aviva, the Inquisitor, born of this nightmare, </span>
  <em>
    <span>she could not be real, </span>
  </em>
  <span>and Wisdom-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>smiled</span>
</p><p>
  <span>and kissed Aviva's brow, murmuring something softly-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wisdom turned to him and held out their hand. Then the Veil fully descended, and they were gone.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>This cannot be.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>~</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Start from the beginning," he demanded, pacing. "What did you do?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I gave her some rift-energy," Aviva said. She was sitting against a boulder in the sunlight and let her head loll back, thunking softly against the moss. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"How?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I channeled it. Through my mark. Like I've been doing."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"What do you mean, you channeled it through your mark?" he snapped. "How exactly? You should not-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Solas," she said, and her voice broke on the last syllable. It froze him, the sound coursing down his spine like ice water. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He stopped his pacing and looked at her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She was cradling her hand, where the anchor spat and snapped angrily. Her skin in the summer sunshine was tinged with gray. "Why are you mad at me?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He dropped his staff and sank to his knees - oh, what a fool he was, what a fool he was and had been. "Aviva," he murmured, "Vhenan, I am sorry." He reached out to her and she let herself be drawn into him, into the shelter of his arms. "I am so sorry." She was fever-hot to the touch, all of her, and shaking. She was mortal; she could not possibly bear this power. Oh, what had he done. "Ir abelas, vhenan."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He pulled her into his lap and she pressed her too-hot brow into the curve of his neck; he took the anchor in his hands and reached out to it with his own magic, softly, soothing. Sleep now, sleep. She relaxed as the pain faded, as the burning power pulled back from where it reached out, seared into her skin.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>What had he done? What was he going to do?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You are impossible," he murmured into the top of her head. "That should not have been possible. You could have died-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>&lt;Are you mad?&gt; she said into his shirt, into his heart. She was shaking, she was so tired.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Ira lo," he said. &lt;I'm not.&gt;</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You were shouting at me." This was faintly accusatory. "I helped."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>&lt;Yes.&gt; He held her. &lt;You saved them.&gt;</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Ani simcha." She curled into his arms. &lt;I'm happy.&gt;</span>
</p><p>
  <span>&lt;Thank you, my heart.&gt; His wild, impossible, heart. What had he done? What was he going to do? "Thank you, vhenan."</span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I used Elven when we had it and Hebrew when we didn't. The elves in Dragon Age are Jewish, hmu in the comments or on tumblr at commonevilmastermind if you wanna know more.</p><p>Also, Solas uses "it" pronouns for Wisdom, but Cole uses "she/her" so I threw up my hands and went with "they/them"</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Ghost in the Forest</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Things felt different after that, in the way where everything is technically the same on the surface but vastly different underneath. There was something happening here that he did not understand and it gnawed at him. He watched her, watched her cast and how she sealed the rifts and the seamless flow of how she threw her magic in battle, the movement of staff and hands and power slipping through the Veil like a dance. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>At first, her magic had tasted to him like snow, crisp and clean and cool on his senses. But now there was an undertaste of something more, some bright coppery tang. Had it always been there? Or was her magic tasting more like... blood. Blood in the air, blood on his lips?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Things were different, now that he knew. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now that he knew what she could do.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now that he knew that he lo-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Perhaps he did, but he would not, could not, could not afford to. His entire world, the fate of his people, the severing of the earth from her soul - these were more important than an impossible love, growing up from the shattered remains of his heart.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And yet he found himself doing the strangest things. He knew acutely the sound of her footsteps, bare or booted, on the Skyhold stone. Every time that he could steal away, he could feel himself wanting to, wanting to find her, to see what she was doing. To see if he could help. To be by her side. He dismissed these impulses as foolish; his work was here, mapping out the Veil, researching the (mostly quite awful) research that had been done by the Circles in his absence, studying the rifts, testing. He had work to do.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But he could not help the way his heart beat faster when it was time to lay his things aside and join her in a dream.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For her own part, she was - well. It seemed much the same. She smiled at him and curled up closely against him, tucked under his collarbone in the evening. Beyond her smile, somewhere, something was different. It felt... unnerving to him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He thought it might be better on the road. Away from the fortress and the press of people, the Inquisitor was easier, more relaxed. Her shoulders settled lower on her frame, her smile came  more easily - but the feeling of that </span>
  <em>
    <span>something </span>
  </em>
  <span>still clung to her like a cloud, like a mist that had settled over her eyes and weighted down her hands and feet. Something sat in the shadow of her face, something he didn’t know how to name.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He didn't like it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They had stopped one afternoon in the Emerald Graves, the next point on the map was too far to make before dark. It was the four of them, the first four - he and her and Cassandra and Varric. Compared to their foray into the Hinterlands, so much had changed... and also so little. Varric and Cassandra still bantered. He still watched Aviva, and she, in turn, watched all of them. But they walked differently now, not as survivors any longer. They walked together more like - friends.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Aviva," he said as she was tying down the last tent. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She raised her head and an eyebrow at him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I wish to experiment further, regarding your - the way that the anchor behaved in the Exalted Plains. If you are willing."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Did he imagine the slight drop in her shoulders? Perhaps not. But she stood, shaking out her hand as if it was full of pins and needles.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Is this experimenting going to be safe around the camp?" asked Cassandra, who was starting the fire. "I would not wish to sleep here if someone burned up all of our tents. Again."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Dorian is back at Skyhold," Solas retorted. "You'll find I have much greater control."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Now, let's be fair," Varric said, fiddling with Bianca. "Your control would be a little frazzled too if The Iron Bull was taking you from behind."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cassandra made a face. "How do they make that work? One would think the size difference-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Best not to think about it," Varric said, while Aviva said, "I want to know too," and Solas said simultaneously, "Time and lubricant and patience."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They turned to look at him. He blinked, and made sure his cheeks would not flush. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Fascinating." Varric was studying him, smirking. "Learn that in the Fade?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"One must be thorough in one's studies," Solas retorted. "Aviva?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She wrinkled her nose, thinking. "I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end. If you wanted me to take you, though-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He blushed up his cheekbones to the tips of his ears. "Magic. Are you ready to experiment more with your mark?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Not in the bedroom." She shook her head solemnly. "Too dangerous."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Varric gaffawed and Cassandra laughed and he raised an eyebrow. "You are teasing me."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now she smiled, and it broke across her face like the rising sun. "I am." She grabbed her staff and tilted her head. "Am I?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He did not answer, as he was not sure which option he preferred.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Solas, I'll take your turn to cook dinner if you do breakfast," Varric said, eyeing Cassandra's flickering campfire. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"If you wish," Solas said, "But there are plenty of greens that would be easy enough to harvest-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"That might be why I'm offering," Varric said. "I'm not really the greens sort of type, not when it's been the only sort of type for the last three days in a row. No, I'll go try my hand at fishing, and you can do the morning porridge."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I like this," Cassandra said. "Varric always burns the porridge."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Better burned then the sugary mess you make-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"My porridge is perfectly fine, I will thank you-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Aviva was watching them, a small smile on her face. Solas nudged her elbow and she nodded, moving off to a small clearing between the giant trees, still within earshot of camp.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"It's good, having people," she said softly. "Isn't it?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He nodded his head. "I admit I am more used to being alone," Solas said. "But there are certainly benefits to having company."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Hmm?" she said, tilting her head up at him; an invitation. He should not, there was work to be done - but he stepped into her space and claimed the kiss that she offered. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her lips were soft and her kiss sweet, but the feeling of her standing in his space put more thoughts in his head. His hands ached to do more than settle in the small of her back, and his body had not forgotten her teasing. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But in her kiss, there was no answering fire, no match to his rising heat. There was only that strange weight that fell on her shoulders, in the depths of her dark eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Are you all right?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was not what he had meant to say. He did not ask her much; she did not often answer, and he wanted to invite no questions of her own. He had meant to say something else entirely. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She looked surprised, and a word started to fall out of her lips before she bit it back. She let out a little breath of air. "Not really," she said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He left the silence open, should she wish to say more. But she said instead, "I'm not ready to talk about it."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Of course," he said, and his chest was heavy and light at the same time. No lies, no misdirection; he ached to see her vulnerability, he ached to reach out and fix it, whatever it was. And he felt a soft glow in his gut.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She trusted him enough to tell him she was not okay.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This was a rare and wonderful thing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Do you wish to go on with the experimentation?" he said. "Would you rather, ah-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"No, I want to do this," she shook her head. "But perhaps before dinner, we could sit together?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Sit-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Like that time in the Dales. I liked that."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The time in the Dales - they had sat together under an old oak tree, and she had curled under his arm, her feet thrown into his lap, and they had sat in the shade and listened to the birds and one another's breathing. Occasionally they would trade murmurs, or comments, or soft kisses.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was a memory that he thought of surprisingly often, too.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Yes," he said. "I would like that very much."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She grinned at him, and he smiled. Then she picked up her staff and swung it in its familiar pattern before planting it at her feet. "What did you want to test?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"First," he said, "Put that down."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She looked at the staff - she had spent most nights for a fortnight down in the foundry, scheming with Dagna over its creation - and she made a face before setting it on the ground. "Okay."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Now." He always struggled to describe the sense of magic, of feeling beyond description. "How do you perceive magic?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She blinked at him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He tried again. "When I sense your magic, it has a feeling, like a taste. Your magic tastes like snow." (He did not say and the copper tang of blood). "How do you sense magic?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Aviva thought on this. "Cast a spell?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He did, tossing a barrier down at their feet. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She looked at it, pacing around it, her steps sure on the soft, mossy ground. "I can see it," she said. "It looks like... light, made solid. I can touch it." She did, gliding her fingers across the surface of the barrier. He shuddered, as if the touch skated along his skin. "I can smell it." She inhaled. "Lightning. Sea water. Hmm." She closed her eyes, crouching on the ground, and he was suddenly aware of every breath that passed through him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her face settled into a mask of concentration, as if she were a statue, frozen. His eyes traced her features - the sharp chin, the pocked scar on the edge of her lip, the sweep of her cheekbones, the branching marks of her slave brand. He wanted to press the image into his memory, undulled, forever. He wanted to keep it, for when he had to go away again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wanted to have a piece of this, as little as he deserved it, to keep when he went away again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I hear you," she said, her lips barely moving.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Hmm?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Your magic." She spoke as if from a long way away. "I hear you. It's deep and soft. It's... sad." Her eyes flickered open, life returning back to her still face. "Solas, why are you sad?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Oh dear.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"How do you come to that conclusion?" he said, keeping his face calm.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her nose scrunched. "Now you're afraid, you're panicking."</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Oh no</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He took a deep breath, and then another. Calm. "I did not anticipate that your carrying the anchor would have such consequences."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It must - it had to be a side effect of the anchor. It had to be, it could not-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Please, not here. Not now. Oh no.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You're scared."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Yes."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Why?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He did not, could not answer. She blinked, shook her head as if to clear it. "I'm sorry, I did not mean to intrude upon your privacy-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He shook his head, </span>
  <em>
    <span>no</span>
  </em>
  <span>, still off balance. She reached out and brushed his cheek with a hand - that hand - that glowed green. He took it gently and pressed it to his cheek, leaning into her touch.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Beneath them, the barrier faded.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He had to stop this. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He had to know.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Will you cast a spell?" he asked. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She nodded, focused, and her barrier flowed out of her hands to wrap the ground beneath them. She had gotten so good at that, so well improved from the first day they had met. Well, the fourth day. On the first day, she had been dying from the part of his soul, lodged within her palm.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It must be that, and that only. The only reason she could - could hear him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And yet - he reached out to her magic with all of his senses. He felt blind and deaf and dumb - where once a spell had shone with a thousand glimmering hues, where once he could hear the symphony of power, where once her magic would have been a delight of sensation, he could only feel a faint echo of it, of tastes upon his tongue. "Snow," he said. "And... and... bread?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She dropped his hand, dropped the spell, pushed herself away from him at force. Her eyes were wide and her posture was defensive. "What did you say?" she said. "How did you know that?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Does that mean something to you?” He missed, he </span>
  <em>
    <span>missed</span>
  </em>
  <span> his old senses. The taste of bread?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She nodded, once. “How did you know?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Impossible. Impossible. He had to - had to stop it. Had to cut the link, sever the connection. He should return to Skyhold right away, keep himself away from her. He could not dare. He-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"How did you know that? Why are you so scared?" Her voice was rough, begging, questions he could not begin to answer. "Why are you so sad?" </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He made himself look at her, meet her gaze. Saltwater, on his tongue. Her anger, her sorrow. Her fear.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You are also scared." They were not the words he meant to say. He had to stop this. He had to walk away. He had to-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I don't know what's happening," Aviva murmured. She looked away, as if she could not bear to say it to his face. "I'm afraid you’re too close. And I’m afraid I'm losing you." Wetness at the corner of her eyes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Saltwater on his tongue.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Before he could stop himself, he reached for her and she took him into her arms. He pressed his face into the curve of her neck and felt her hand on the back of his head, felt her sadness mix with relief as she began to breathe again. He felt, he </span>
  <em>
    <span>felt </span>
  </em>
  <span>the comfort that she drew from their touch.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It should not be possible.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Each spirit is known to have a resonance," he said, his voice remarkably calm from where he had buried himself in her shoulder. "A vibration, a frequency of energy on which it exists. This is true for the spirits of those with bodies - elves, humans, qunari - as well as the spirits who lack corporeal form."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She was shaking slightly - laughter, light and joyous, like a fruit from the desert he had tasted long ago. "Only you could deliver an academic lecture in the middle of a breakdown-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I am not breaking down," he said calmly. But he didn't pick his head up, didn’t try to remove himself from her arms. "When two spirits come close, when they resonate on frequencies that are very similar to one another, there can be... overflow. A connection made, per say."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She froze. "Solas," she said slowly, "Are you talking about... </span>
  <em>
    <span>beshert?</span>
  </em>
  <span>"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He did not answer. She turned slightly, pressed a kiss behind his ear. "Solas, vhenan’ara... are you talking about... soulmates?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Solas? Aviva?" Cassandra's voice. Cassandra's voice. He fade-stepped backwards even as he felt her arms tightened around him. Cassandra rounded a tree and saw - well. He was standing, hands behind his back, expression locked down as tightly as he could make it. Old instincts pounded in his chest, instincts that had kept him alive - don't get caught, don't show weakness, don't let yourself be seen.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Aviva was kneeling on the ground, her arms full of air. She looked - well. Furious was one word for it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As he locked himself down, the sense of her faded from his tongue.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Aviva, I - oh." Cassandra blinked. "My apologies, I did not mean to interrupt."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"It's fine." Aviva rose to her feet, not breaking eye contact with him. He was the one who looked away, but her expression said, "We will talk about this later."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cassandra looked from one of them to the other. "I, well. Neither Varric nor myself could find the fishing line."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"It's in the front or side pocket of my pack," Aviva said slowly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I believe it is actually in the belt-pouch I left in the entrance to my tent," Solas corrected. "I will come back and fetch it with you. It will take only a moment." He had to collect himself, away from her watching eyes. He had to figure out what he was going to say.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I'll practice more." Aviva's smile had no joy in it. He felt a chill race down his spine.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cassandra looked between them, but he had no answers to give.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The fishing line was fetched, but Cassandra would not let him go so easily. "Are you alright, Solas? I have never seen you so shaken."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Chuckles doesn't get shaken, even when the sky is ripping apart above our heads." Varric was fighting to tie the proper knots in the thin line. He looked up, then looked up again. "Although the Seeker might have a point on this one."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I'm fine. Thank you."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They did not believe him. Once he had been able to lie to the most treacherous, devious monsters on the planet. No longer. Or perhaps it was easier to lie to a monster than to people who he considered-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Well, to people he was friendly with. Who he held in esteem.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Varric and Cassandra exchanged a look. "Well, if you need to talk about it, you know we're here."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I will be here, you will be fishing."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I meant metaphorically, Seeker, it's a metaphor-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A sound in the woods that didn’t belong. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He turned, reaching for his staff, and an army of ghosts came out of the forest and descended upon them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>~</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He threw a barrier down under the three of them, himself and Varric and Cassandra. That had become second nature, as easy as breathing. Cassandra cursed and lunged for her sword and Varric dropped his tangled fishing line as he reached for Bianca.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The wraths were green, half-bodied, just torso and head and the outline of arms. He cursed at the number, dozens if not more. Where was she? Where was Aviva? He readied his staff and took aim-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"STOP!" The desperate shout threw him off balance, his shot going wide of the wraith and very nearly setting Aviva aflame as she charged out of the towering trees. She batted it aside - </span>
  <em>
    <span>she batted it aside?</span>
  </em>
  <span> - and kept running towards them, surrounded by a host of spectres. "Stop! Don't shoot! Don't attack!"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cassandra, shield raised, slid in front of Varric, who had his sight trained on a particularly large wraith. He compensated for her cover, "Thunder, what is happening?!"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"They're not wraiths!" she screamed, desperate. "They're my family!"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"How can you-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Look!"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As Aviva drew closer, the wraiths solidified, hardened, coming into focus as if they were approaching from a great distance. Their faces were Dalish, tattooed. Some of them had dark eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Some had blue-black hair.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Varric stood from behind Cassandra's shield. The wraith he had been aiming at was an older woman, now, with a severe braid, shot with gray, and an almost-familiar face. She bore the mark of Dirthamen and bore a staff and an Ironwood ring.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The wraiths - spirits? ghosts? - spread out around the clearing, moving through the tents as if they weren't there. Other details emerged - aravels, taken half apart and their boards spread out on the ground to create a great table. A hearthfire, with an older Dalish keeping watch over several pots and roasting things. Children running, shouting soundlessly into the air.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Keeper watched, quietly, a smile only growing at the corner of her dark eyes. She said very little - a look here, a nod there, orchestrating the madness with soft, minimal effort.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She looked so much like Aviva, aged and worn by time. It was horrifying.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He looked to Aviva, and she was crying. As soundlessly as the ghosts, tears falling down her face, she was weeping, and his sense of her was suddenly flooded with copper bite and bitter tears. Her eyes were fixed to each of the two dozen faces as they ran by, her hands reaching out to touch the memories that no one could feel.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Solas put down his staff. Cassandra lowered her sword. "By the Maker..."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Does somebody want to explain to me what weird magic thing is going on this time?" Varric said nervously.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I reached for them," Aviva said, her voice unsteady. "I reached into the Fade and they were here. I remember. I was - look!" She pointed to a girl, maybe eight winters of age, running in a pack of other children. The girl was laughing as they made a game of hopping over the table being set upon the ground before being shooed away by the waiting adults. The pack of children circled around to try again, but a single look from the Keeper bent them in a different direction, and they rain out of sight.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Aviva.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I was twelve," she said. Solas walked over to her, took her hand in his own. Hot, too hot, and snapping. "I was twelve and we were traveling here and it was Passover. It was Pesach, the first full moon after the spring equinox. It was the first night of the seder, the dinner." Her voice was ragged, as if it came from a long way away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Memories with power, with emotion - those are the ones that stay in the Fade." She was pulling the memory, the fade-shadows, through the Veil - how? How was she powering them? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He did not like this.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You should stop, for now. They will still be here." He ran his thumb over her palm, over her mark. Her hand was fever-hot, and it was crawling up her arm. "The memories will not go anywhere. Stop this, before something else comes through."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Aviva shook her head. "No, I want, I want to see them. I want to see them again."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Kid..." Varric sighed and came to stand with them. "This isn't the best way."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"It's not safe," he said. He did not know if it was or was not, but with a weak point through the Veil, and her emotions projecting so intensely, he would not put good money on their chances for this to end well. "Aviva, let it go."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cassandra, sword still in hand, sidled around two people laying out planks for the table. She stood on Aviva's other side, one hand on her sword, the other on Aviva's shoulder.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The scene shifted. Ghosts sat, reclining, around the table of planks that had been spread out on the grass, covered with pickles and cheeses, greens and preserves, hard, thin crackers, clear bowls of water, an empty pot of soup, and quite a number of empty wine bottles and skeins. A man stood at the Keeper's right hand - he had fair, flyaway hair and wild, gesturing hands and spoke in soundless, shouting words as if he told a story. Everyone's eyes were transfixed on him as he leaped and danced and, presumably, sang. At one point, he called upon a pack of children to help him - some of them with flyaway hair and some with that same wry smile. Siblings, his children? Solas spotted the young Aviva in the midst, even as she murmured, "Aba." Father.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At the edge of the table, one of the figures flickered. Had they- been wearing a hood?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Aviva." He turned to stand in front of her. "Aviva, let it go. You are drawing things to us, wearing the Veil too thin-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Is it just me, or does that one look awfully like a despair demon now?" Varric said mildly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cassandra raised her sword.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Aviva." He shook her shoulders but she did not see him, filling her eyes with the faces of her beloved dead. "Aviva!" He threw down a barrier as the first demon ripped through with a sound like nails on slate. Varric swore and Cassandra lunged. "Aviva!"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He absolutely should not do this.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He reached for the place in his magic that tasted like copper and salt and the bite of fresh snow, the place where her feelings spilled over into his senses, the place where two souls meet, and he tore down the stony barrier of his rejection, his fears, his guilt and self-doubt and self-loathing. He took her hand, placed it on his heart, and </span>
  <em>
    <span>pushed</span>
  </em>
  <span> with all his magic and will, pushed all his might through the tiny connection. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Hear me!</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>She gasped as if she had been punched in the gut and looked at him, her eyes open wide. Seeing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Solas?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A despair demon struck at her from behind - he swung her away and took the blow, its claws tearing into his ribcage. A </span>
  <em>
    <span>thwip</span>
  </em>
  <span> from Bianca buried a crossbow in the thing before it could get a second attack. His knees wavered, but held, and he lunged for his staff.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After that, everything went silent for a while, in the way that battle tuned out all noise, all chaos, everything but the dance of magic, the strike and counter and blow. Aviva had grabbed a staff from their spares - it was one attuned to lightning, and her face and lips were white with the crackle of the magic, but she fought nonetheless. Varric had fallen back, and Solas joined him in covering Cassandra, tossing barriers on the ground and caging the demons with walls of flame to guide them to the Seeker's waiting sword.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The fight went on and on and on. When she turned to seal the rift, he hardly had the energy left to be afraid that it wouldn't work, but the mark patched the hole between the worlds just as neatly as if it had never existed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He placed a hand on his ribs and it came away tacky but not soaking. Not too deep, but-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Aviva collapsed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cassandra caught her mid-fall, dropping her sword so as not to slice the other woman in half. Solas limped over to them. "Is she wounded?" he snapped, harsher than he had meant.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I don't know, help me to lie her down. There. Varric, the potions-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Right here, Seeker." Varric lowered himself down next to them. Aviva's head was resting on Cassandra's knees as Solas checked her for injury. "Healing or lyrium?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Both."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Varric looked at him as he was uncorking. "One for her - here Cassandra, you give it to her. One for you - Solas, drink."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I do not need-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Drink." </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He did, the scent of elfroot strong and cloying on his lips, burning down his throat. But the ground steadied, somewhat. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Now this one." The dwarf was too pushy, but the brackish lyrium potion re-kindled the pool of magic in his chest. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cassandra was leaning Aviva up on her shoulder - he did not like the gray tone that had returned underneath her skin, nor did he like how painfully hot the anchor felt in her hand. But her color steadied with the healing potion - she had roused enough to drink, thank goodness - and she began to stir after the lyrium.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her eyes opened. She shifted, looking at them - Varric, himself, Cassandra. He nearly winced to see the pain as the memories returned..</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She turned her head into Cassandra's shoulder and she wept. She wept quietly with the soft, heartbreaking shakes of an old hurt, a silent one, one borne in the darkness, alone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He and Cassandra and Varric exchanged glances. Cassandra wrapped her other arm around Aviva, holding her. Varric put a hand on her foot, grounding. And he - he took her hand, her marred, ravaged hand, and tried to remember that even in the height of his power, he could not have fixed a hurt such as this one.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They sat together, the three of them, and held her as she cried. And Solas tried to convince himself that what he had felt when he pushed at the bond between them-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>What he had felt in return-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So they sat together, the four of them. In that moment, it was enough.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>*throws up hands* Soulmates? I guess now we have soulmates? Who knew? Not me! Thank you I am trash.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Stories and Scars</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>"I’m sorry," came the soft murmur from the doorway.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He, an ancient mage with an unclaimed god-hood, did not startle. But perhaps he did jump, a little. The bandage he was unwinding slipped, linen spooling down around his waist.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He sat on the low cot in his old - in his room, re-taping the demon gashes that had been stubbornly reluctant to heal. It was perhaps to be expected - without his old foci to draw from, he had to use his own energy to pull power from the Fade, energy limited by his physical form. Oh, he was skilled enough to make up for it, using finesse where he had once had only power. But unethera had left him weak, and what gains he made he quickly spent again, pushing himself to the edge with the Inquisitor on their missions. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He could say something. Ask for a reprieve. But that would take her away from him, and that time would come soon enough. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>So he was, perhaps, in worse shape than he had let on when she walked in on him, standing in the doorway with an apology for - something - on her lips. He had not heard her, had not felt her, so deeply had he closed himself off. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Is that -" she nodded to his wounds - three long gashes across his ribs, not as deep as they had been. Not bleeding. Perhaps slightly inflamed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"It is nothing." He pressed the cotton pad against the gashes and attempted to bind it with the linen strip again. She crossed the room in two quick strides and pushed away his hand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Why didn't you go to the healers?" she said, voice low and dangerous. "Why didn't you tell me?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"It is nothing," he said shortly. "It is healing."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"It is infected." Oh, she was angry. "Stay here and do not touch it. Or you will regret it."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Inquisitor-" she jabbed him in the ribs, just enough above his injury to sting, but not enough to hurt. Surprised, he gave way. "Ah! As you say."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You're damned right, as I say." She strode out of the room, her shoulders set. He stayed where she had left him. As she said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The sensation pressed an old memory into his mind, of lovers and listening, of "as you say," and the delicious dances of pleasure and pain. He was too old for this, and he told his thoughts such.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As usual, they failed to listen. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She returned with a bowl of steaming water, a rag, and a crooked earthenware pot that stunk of magic and elfroot. He protested. "There are others who need-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She silenced him with a look. He stilled. The hot, soapy water hurt, but he offered her no argument.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Despite her anger, her hands were gentle.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Why did you let this fester?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"It is no major injury. It will heal."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She said nothing, just kept slowly washing out the cuts. So gently.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I did not mean to make you worry." This was important to say.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She uncorked the pot of elfroot salve, spelled against infection. It was cold, and it smelled, and it bit into his skin. "You are important to me," she said, smearing on a generous layer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He found he did not dare to answer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She put the cork back on the salve and stilled, hands at a loss in her lap. "Solas?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Hmm?" He missed her touch.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Why have you been avoiding me?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He looked up at her sharply but she didn't meet his gaze, just stared at her thumb as she traced the rim of the crooked little pot. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Are you angry with me?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Of all the things he expected her to say, that was not one of them. "I - no. No, I'm not. Not in the slightest. Why?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"In the Emerald Graves, you told me to stop." Her thumb, going around and around. "You told me to stop and I didn't listen. And you got hurt."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He closed his eyes and fought against the feeling rising inside him, the burning sensation from the impossible, fledgling bond. "No. I am not angry. Were they my dead-" Were they </span>
  <em>
    <span>his </span>
  </em>
  <span>dead, he would have opened the rift himself to tear their memories limb from limb, as he should have done long ago. "I understand."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Why have you been avoiding me?" She still hadn't looked up from the pot in her lap, still hadn't looked up to meet his eyes. Bracing herself for his rejection?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He let out a breath, ran a hand over his head. It did not pull his wound, as the action would have just minutes before - perhaps he had been too stubborn, neglecting the salve. Ah, but how to say this. "I have been concerned about the... connection. That we... discovered between us."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Before I discovered the memory of my family, you knew about the taste of bread," she reminded him. He nodded, but left the space for her to continue. "I had been remembering - remembering the seder we had, in that place. That was the taste of bread, that memory. Those feelings. And you knew."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He did not say, </span>
  <em>
    <span>We have begun this connection because my soul, my power, is in your palm and the more you draw on it, the more you draw on me, the closer we are bound. That is it, nothing more.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He did not say, </span>
  <em>
    <span>There is no such thing as a bashert. Once, perhaps, but no longer - do not think this of me.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He did not say, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Did you feel how much I love you?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He said, instead, "In our work with the mark - your power, my healing of you - I believe we have become somewhat... intertwined."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"My aba told a story, once." She settled her weight further on his bed, let her arm brush against him. "A story about </span>
  <em>
    <span>bashert</span>
  </em>
  <span>-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"A story only."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"When the first elf was created," she went on as if she had not heard him, "It was called </span>
  <em>
    <span>ha adom, </span>
  </em>
  <span>the person, and had two heads, four arms, four legs, and one spine. But </span>
  <em>
    <span>ha adom</span>
  </em>
  <span> was lonely, and so the gods split it in two, </span>
  <em>
    <span>ish </span>
  </em>
  <span>and </span>
  <em>
    <span>isha</span>
  </em>
  <span>, the first man and woman. So they say that the gods continue to create each elf as one great-souled being, which they then split into two or three (or sometimes more), so that they may be born and find each other once again, so they will not be lonely." She looked somewhere, far away. "They say this is why the gods make grapes but not wine and wheat but not bread, so we may have the joy in discovery. In creation. In finding our </span>
  <em>
    <span>bashert.</span>
  </em>
  <span>"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Solas rubbed his forehead. This was giving him a headache. "There are many things the Dalish say about the gods that are wildly untrue. We have spoken about this."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She leaned into him, a little more, and he felt the trap even as he fell into it. "In ancient Arlathan, when you were more yourself, there was no belief in a... predestined mate. There was courting and bonding and separation, much as now. But rarely, very rarely, there were special partnerships - pairs usually, yes, but sometimes triads or more - that were formed based on..." He waved a hand in the air, there was no good translation, "Compatibility, let us say. That 'resonance of spirit' that I spoke of in the Emerald Graves."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"</span>
  <em>
    <span>Bashert.</span>
  </em>
  <span>"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"It was the term, yes, but it was not exclusive to sexual partners, or reproduction. It was a state of being, of connection, of closeness - "</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Did you ever have such a partner?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"They were very, very rare." He leaned back against her, feeling more of the contact between them. "Siblings, friends, spouses, colleagues, lovers. Relationships that were made, not chosen by the hand of destiny, although some argued otherwise." Something tried to catch his attention, but it would not stick in his mind. "That is what </span>
  <em>
    <span>bashert</span>
  </em>
  <span> meant. And if someone changed, over time, it was as liable to be lost as any other relationship."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Not destiny," she said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Not destiny," he confirmed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She rested her hand over his own, and he took it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"What is it we have?" Her tone was light, though the question was not.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He ran his thumb across the back of her hand. "A mixing of our magics due to the mark," he said, and was almost sure it was the truth. "Leading to a spillover of emotion, if we allow it. I am certain it would not be wise."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"No speaking to one another in our minds?" She was teasing. "No feats of otherworldly magic, of healing, of finding one another across realms and centuries, flying-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Flying?" he laughed, and something loosened in his chest in relief. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He could feel her shrug. "My father liked to tell a lot of stories."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I wish I could have heard them," he said, and found that he meant it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A smile. "Perhaps I could tell some to you. They are Dalish, though, you can't be rude."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I would behave."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I doubt it." She turned to smile at him and it felt like the sun had risen. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He let his head rest on her shoulder, just for an instant. "I am sorry if I worried you."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She kissed the top of his head. "You can talk to me, you know."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"It is not so simple." Or was it? But something kept clamoring in his mind for his attention, something important, just out of reach.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Hmm." She leaned over and kissed him, brushing a hand down his back. He shivered with the touch, although he did not intend to, and leaned into the kiss. It was several minutes later, short of breath, that she broke away. "I have a meeting with the advisors," she murmured in his ear. More shivers, goosebumps, he was too weak to fight this want, damn him. "Perhaps we can pick this up after dinner?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This was a bad idea. But... "As my lady commands."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She raised an eyebrow. "Oh, is that the mood we're in?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He took her hand and kissed the center of her palm as an answer, then the inside of her wrist. Then-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She shuddered and pulled away. "I have to go," she said, but she was laughing, and she stole another kiss, sweet with joy. "Thank you for talking to me."</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I love you,</span>
  </em>
  <span> he did not say. Instead he nodded, mock-formally. "Inquisitor."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Ugh," she said. "Shirtless heathen apostate." And she was gone, the door closing behind her, and the room was darker in her absence.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He fell back on the bed, arm over his face, his leggings tight. Every time, every time. When he was alone, he knew - he had to stop this. Had to cut it off, say good-bye, this was a mistake. He had to step away from her. But when she was near, with her smile and her soft questions. She was the Inquisitor truly, inquisitive, circling ever closer to him, one question after another, one remark that he could help but to correct-!</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She was so clever, his beautiful, impossible love.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>~</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There were three things that escaped his mind, for a time. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>One was the message Josephine had given him in regards to dinner that evening. That it was the first full moon of spring, which she had learned was the Dalish holiday called Passover, and would he please join them in the war room for the meal instead of going back to his studies with his plate. He remembered this when Cole appeared under his desk (singing an irritatingly catchy song, something about </span>
  <em>
    <span>halla</span>
  </em>
  <span> and </span>
  <em>
    <span>two zuzim</span>
  </em>
  <span>) and refused to leave unless it was with him, Solas, for dinner. Dorian came down to add his voice to the commotion and to clap Solas firmly on the back in encouragement.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The second thing he realized was that the gashes on his ribs failed to hurt at all, even with this assault. In fact, he had forgotten to put on the bandages on top of the salve. But the salve was no longer there, nor were the gashes - just three fine lines, like pale young scars that would fade before the returning of the spring. He was glad that Cole and Dorian - and then Varric, as they passed through the Great Hall, were there, glad of their noise and their chaos, glad they drowned out the thoughts that rose in his mind at this, thoughts he could ill-afford to have. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The third thing he forgot entirely as he went to the dinner, and he would not remember until it was much, much too late. </span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Do I love how she walks into the chapter, no. Did I live how she walks into the chapter, absolutely. Recovery from abusive relationships sucks, kids.</p><p>Yell at me in the comments if you didn't see and/or want to know what Solas missed.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Skyhold Seder</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I fought with this chapter for eleven days and wrote 11k before I got it right, ye gods. So this is even more wildly unbeta'd than the past three chapters because i have no chill and needed to triumphantly get it up on the internet because HA.</p><p>Yell at me in the comments or google if you need any jewish things explained better, I'll fix it for yas.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span> The War Room had been transformed, the table cleared of maps and markers (although a clever eye could still make out the dagger prints embedded into the wood). It had been extended and was set with around a dozen sets of plates and cups and silverware, dotted along its length. He and Varric and Dorian and Cole were some of the first to arrive, although Josephine was in the corner with her clipboard, Dalish the Charger and Aiden who worked in the kitchens, talking about something over bowed heads.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cole flickered down the length of the table and back again. "It's a story you tell through food. Bread for haste, horseradish for bitter slavery, greens for new life and apple paste for building-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Calm down kid, you'll spoil the surprise." Varric pulled himself a chair from the end of the table and patted the seat next to him. "You can come sit by me. Remember your table manners?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"But I don't have to eat-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"It's polite, remember? And it's for the Inquisitor. It'll make her happy."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Oh," Cole said, delighted. "Good!" He flickered to the seat next to Varric and sat still for a whole count of ten before starting to examine the way the light caught on the tines of the silverware.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Solas!" Josephine said, as the Iron Bull came in. He sat and teased Dorian about sitting in his lap as Josephine turned to Solas. "Do you think we have everything?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Dalish and Aiden will doubtless have guided you better than I," he said smoothly. "I have never participated in a dinner such as this."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Seder," she corrected him thoughtlessly, then flushed, rose under copper. "That is, I - they said it is called a seder, which means order, as the dinner is done in a specific order, and-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He raised his hands, calming. "I am sure they have guided you well. I am no expert here."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I'm afraid it will not be what the Inquisitor wishes," Josephine said. "There are regional and clan variations I could not account for; I asked her if she wished to celebrate, but I don't think she anticipated something on this scale."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He looked at the shining table, the glittering of the crystal and silver in the candle light. Cullen had slipped in and was admiring the truly prodigious amount of wine in the corner, pointing certain vintages out to Vivienne, who looked grand and unimpressed. Sera and Blackwall had taken a corner of the table and were daring one another to eat as much of the horseradish as they could, then snorting with laughter and rendering their condition worse, while Dorian and The Iron Bull offered bets and commentary. Krem was there too, rather grandly pulling out a seat for Lace Harding, who gave him a hard time for it, and Dagna wandered in behind Leliana, smelling of smoke, looking slightly concussed and absolutely delighted by it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He caught Varric's eye - this was no set of aravel in the woods. Would their efforts only hurt her, so soon after seeing her family? Varric made a small face and shrugged, as unsure as he was. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I think," he said to Josephine, who was flipping again through her notes, "That here, away from Inquisition business, it would suit her better to call her by her name."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Aviva," Josephine murmured, with a feeling behind it that made Solas stop and look at the other woman again. The color flushed once more in her cheeks, but she did not look away. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Solas nodded, understanding. He could fault no one else for falling in love with Aviva Lavellan. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"How long is this elfy shit going to take anyways?" Sera cried from the end of the table, where she had draped her legs into Dagna's lap.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Hours and hours and hours," said Dalish. She and Sera had a love/hate relationship on the best of days, and delighted in winding one another up. "There are songs and stories and long, boring-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The door swung open once again and Aviva and Cassandra stepped through, heads bent in conversation. Cassandra stopped, nodding at the table, and Aviva stared at her a moment, not understanding. Then she followed the Seeker's gaze and stopped in her tracks, eyes wide.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Silence fell in the room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No one moved.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He could feel his heart in his chest. Her face was frozen. Did she hate it? He would not reach for their bond. He would not. But did she-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Surprise!" Cole yelled, jumping up from behind the table. It broke the spell - everyone started shouting or laughing, and Aviva was laughing the most of all, her eyes overflowing with tears, hugging everybody she could get her hands on, and Josephine twice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cole settled cross-legged into his chair. Solas caught his eye - had the spirit truly gotten confused, carried that action over from Krem's birthday celebrations the fortnight past? But Cole met his gaze and smiled and gave a very purposeful blink.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Iron Bull caught the expression. "One eye, Cole, you're supposed to wink with one eye."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You wink with all of your eyes."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I only have the one to begin with - you have two, so you only wink with one."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Solas looked at Cole and smiled and nodded, very softly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The spirit boy beamed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Okay, everybody - sit, settle down please, thank you, we're going to get started." Josephine's voice called them all to order, and he found himself sitting at Aviva's left hand, at the head of the table. Josephine, should she ever sit down, was on her right. Aviva, eyes wet and cheeks red and smiling, took his hand and squeezed it. In the edge of his mind, without trying, he could taste her joy overflowing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And they began.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was... not easy. To put aside his own mind, his own beliefs and knowledge, his own anger (yes, he was angry) at the Dalish who had pushed him and his knowledge away. But the seder - the Passover dinner - was a story, a story about things that had happened to the elves while he had been sleeping. It was a story they told in the thousands of years, a narrative they had constructed about themselves, so important that it became critical that they tell it to one another every year, so that no one would forget.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He knew what happened to his people while he slept - but it was another thing entirely to hear how they told the stories to themselves.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The story and the meal were linked together - each element on the table representing a different thing, a different part of the story. Questions were not only allowed, but encouraged, the rowdier members of the table shouting over one another, and those who knew the answers yelling back at them. They drank wine and dipped vegetables in salt water, they said some very odd blessings over very flat, bland bread. Josephine, asking the ritual question, "Why is this night different from all other nights?" was answered with Aviva in her wine cup, louder than she meant, muttering "Where the fuck should I start?" Cassandra tried to keep a straight face and failed, Sera cheered and whooped, and Dorian and Varric immediately started a betting pool for how many times they could get Aviva to curse before the night was done, aided and abetted by Cullen.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He found he was enjoying himself more than he anticipated.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There were ritual questions to ask, by four different characters of children. Being absent any children, the roles were parsed out with great prejudice. Josephine was given the role of the wise child, much to her flustered enjoyment. Sera was dragooned into being the wicked child and, when she refused, Dagna took over the part. After a loud argument, Cullen took the role of the simple child and Cole, the child who didn't know how to ask.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Varric protested at this - Cole was the best of them of all at asking questions! Better to give the role to someone who didn't ask questions, only answered them, like Vivienne. Or Solas. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The dwarf had to excuse himself shortly afterwards to change, his trousers having caught fire for no reason whatsoever that anyone could guess. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The story unwound itself, through salt water and bitter herbs and the weird, cracker-like bread. Long ago, after Arlathan had fallen, the elven people had been captured as slaves in Tevinter. They lived there, in slavery, for generations - so they dipped greens in saltwater, to remember the tears. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dorian, who kept on refilling his first cup of wine, jumped into the role of the Evil Tevinter Emperor. He cackled and twirled his mustache and lounged in his chair, feet up on The Iron Bull's lap, dictating his mandates. Aviva, by unanimous vote, was forced into the role of Shartan. She wore an old curtain as a ragged cape and stomped and stuttered and shouted "Let my people go!" </span>
</p><p>
  <span>At this, Dorian cackled maniacally and refused her, hardening his heart. The table was given leave to inflict upon him a number of plagues, just as the gods had (allegedly, Solas thought, knowing well where the gods had been) inflicted on that Emperor of long ago. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dagna had some powder that turned his untouched water glass red, thick, and bloody. Sera had been in charge of the frogs and the bugs, and everyone agreed afterwards that she should </span>
  <em>
    <span>not</span>
  </em>
  <span> have been. A subtle application of ice magic from Vivienne made Dorian shiver as if ill, and a less subtle application of itching power from the innocent-looking Krem made the mage howl that it was pretend, for goodness sake, they were all horrid.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Next was hail, and Lace Harding's turn to demonstrate her excellent aim with snowballs. Sera's offer of locusts was firmly turned down (it didn't matter, they escaped anyway) so Cullen was drafted into stealing Dorian's wine, for starvation. The fact that he didn't steal it, but rather menaced it away from the unhappy mage at sword point, was considered a minor detail at best.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Solas was called upon here, and played into the drama more than he ought have, perhaps, plunging the entirety of the room into darkness. Aviva lit a single candle, and the shadows played across her face as she detailed the last plague, and the most horrific - the slaying of the firstborn children of Tevinter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Silence fell. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Solas let the flames burn up again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Well," Dorian said, and rubbed the back of his neck where he hadn't been able to get all of the itching powder off. "Tell me I said yes after that - those gods of yours are viscous, my dear."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Oh. If he only knew.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Do you think they should have done that?" Aviva said, her hand open, welcoming debate. "What else could they have done?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This led to another shouting match, where it was finally decided that while the ancient elven gods were bad, they had nothing on the Inquisition for imagination.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Solas had to agree with them there.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The story continued, hastened by their grumbling stomachs. They ate the bite of horseradish for bitterness ("I wouldn't put that in your mouth, Cole"), they ate the odd crackers - matzoh, the bread of poverty -  and squished apple nut paste (rather good, actually) sandwiches, to represent the mortar of the buildings they had built in their time. There were more blessings - Dalish had written them in Common for Josephine, and in fluid, twisted elven from Aviva. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Blackwall had given up, was lying on the table with his head in his arms, muttering at his empty plate. Aviva, her hand on her cheek regarded him. "Do you think he will die if we don't eat soon?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I like regular meals," the Warden protested. "Since when is that a crime?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I'm not sure you chose the right occupation," Cassandra said, muffling a smile in her wine.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Well, I am eating," Josephine nodded. "The rest of you can join me or not as you wish." She gave some invisible signal and Aiden and Mary, the cook, burst through the doors in triumph, smiling in well-earned victory.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was no one meal for Passover, the Dalish having wandered far and picked up culinary elements wherever they traveled. Mary, under the passionate direction of her assistant Aiden, had ducked into the library and into his childhood memories and created a truly magnificent feast. It started easily, with light, fluffy dumplings in a rich chicken broth, then an avalanche of food descended on the table. There were smoked fish dumplings, roast carrots cooked with dates and a potato casserole that Aviva called "kugel" and took three helpings of. There were roasted leeks with honey and boiled eggs with their insides scooped out, mixed with mustard and sauces, and piled in again. There were two roast chickens, fried potato pancakes with apple jam and cream, a light lemony salad with crisp spring greens, and, as a centerpiece, a huge druffalo brisket marinaded in red wine.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Everyone stuffed themselves senseless. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When they came to the point they could eat no more, Aiden and Mary showed their vindictive side, bringing out trays of fruit tarts and coconut custard, thick chocolate cake made without flour, candied dates, cloud-like meringues, and more of the cracker-like matzoh, covered in chocolate and honey and spiced nuts.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They were only beginning on this second bounty when Aviva gave a shout - a piece of the matzoh, an important piece, apparently, had been stolen! No one was particularly disturbed until Josephine told them, as sternly as she could with a mouth full of candied dates, that they could not leave the room until the stolen matzoh had been found. In addition, she was offering a prize of twenty royals or a new mount from the Inquisition stables for whomever found it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Suspiciously, Leliana added that she was sure the culprit had hidden the stolen matzoh within such and such bounds of the castle, and had followed such and such rules in the hiding. The hunt had begun.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>An hour later, the rest of the fortress had gone to bed, and those who had gone to hunt returned to the table, tired and over-full and defeated. Next year, was the consensus, whoever hid the damn cracker should not be Leliana.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No one, he noticed, mentioned that they might be somewhere else in the year to come.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Aviva brought them back together, but they were too deep into food and wine and laughter to learn any of the traditional songs. Instead they sang "Sera Was Never," then "Scout Lace Harding," "The Charger's Song," and finished with the newest of the songs, "Companions," only they used the dirty lyrics instead of the traditional ones.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He could not remember the last time he had been a part of such laughter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They quieted, lapsing into silence and into one another. Aviva cleared her throat and met Leliana's gaze and, softly, started to speak. Her cheeks were flushed with the wine and the laughter, and her eyes were brighter than they had ever been.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Here we say, traditionally, 'This year we are slaves. Next year, we will be free.'" She raised her glass and drank - they followed suit. "I celebrated Passover six times when I lived in slavery. We had no matzoh, or brisket, no </span>
  <em>
    <span>karpas,</span>
  </em>
  <span> or </span>
  <em>
    <span>charoset</span>
  </em>
  <span> or </span>
  <em>
    <span>maror.</span>
  </em>
  <span>  But we told one another the story, this story. And we said, 'next year, next year, we will be free.'"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She stood, and he followed her with his eyes - he could not look away. "Here we open the door for Eliyahu, a messenger. We set an extra glass of wine out for him, and he will come in from his wandering, wearing his white wolf fur and tell us that we are to be free."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Here, Solas nearly choked on his wine. Cole looked at him and blinked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Headless of his trouble, Aviva continued. "This year is like no other. At first I thought I was a slave of a different sort - which certain people didn't help by throwing me in chains, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Cassandra.</span>
  </em>
  <span>" The Seeker snorted, laughing - this was an old joke between them, now. "But it turns out, I'm not. I'm not a slave - I'm Eliyahu. And every person who we help - we open the door and say, it's time. It's time for you to be free."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She walked the length of the table. "Corypheus won't be stopped like the Emperor was - he has no heart to harden, has no kingdom to scour with darkness. Has no people, no livestock, no children. He's mad. And the gods - well. The only miracle you're getting is me. Sorry." She shrugged, smiling, and shrugged off their protests. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"But it's better than that, because - just let me be sappy, Sera - It's better than that because I've gotten a miracle in every one of you. And it's not just me, it's all of us together. And the Inquisition - we're a big fucking miracle-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Four," Dorian muttered from Bull's lap, "Varric, that's four fucks, you owe me ten royals-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"And together," Aviva continued, raising her voice. "We're gonna do this. This year, there are slaves. Next year..." She looked at Solas and smiled. "Next year, everyone will be free."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cassandra raised a glass. "To freedom."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"To freedom," they said, raising their glasses. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"To the Inquisitor," Blackwall said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"To Aviva," Solas corrected.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"To Aviva!" they cheered.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She flushed and raised her glass. "And to all of my beautiful disasters."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I beg your pardon," protested Vivienne.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"To the Inquisiton," she corrected.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"To the Inquisition!" came the cry.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"To the Inquisition," he said, and drank, and the taste of it on his tongue was the happiest thing he had ever known.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Sunshine (NSFW)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>To skip NSFW bits, read only to the ~</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="">He woke up in the morning lying in a sunbeam, tucked into Aviva's shoulder. She was breathing in the soft, heavy breaths that may or may not be called snores, depending on who was sharing the tent with her and how much they liked ice magic in the morning. They were audible, yes, but he loved the soothing rhythm. He loved hearing her breathe, falling asleep next to her and knowing that she was right there beside him.</p><p class="">A thousand thoughts pressed for his attention - the bond between them, the seder from the night before, the sound of the laughter and the taste of her joy. But also, the Veil, the Breach, the anchor, his mark on her hand - Corypheus and the Eternal City, his orb, his name. The secrets he could not tell her. The lies-</p><p>A thousand thoughts pressed for his attention and, for the first time in waking memory, he pushed them all away and turned his face back into the hollow of her throat and let himself drift.</p><p>She gave a little <em>hmm</em> of pleasure and woke enough to run a hand up his spine and down again, slow and soothing against his skin. In the sunlight, it was wonderful. He let himself drift. For a moment, he didn't think about anything at all.</p><p>Eventually his body betrayed him, and he had to slip out of her arms, out of bed. The little balcony, once just storage for junk, had changed over the past months. Now it was a wide platform, cradled by wooden branches, as if the planks of Skyhold had remembered the trees from which they came and echoed that in their growing. The little camp cot in the balcony had grown into a circular nest of blankets and pillows and soft, cottony sheets, and the stone in the ceiling overhead had parted to create a glass skylight, so that someone in the bed could look up and always see the sun or clouds or stars.</p><p>The ladder ran down the far wall, which was shaped like the trunk of a tree, and the flagstones had shifted underneath, as a smooth forest floor. As he climbed down from the balcony, she gave a little sound of unhappiness, reaching for the spot on the bed where he had been. </p><p>"I will be right back," he assured her, oddly pleased, and she grumbled but subsided, taking his pillow to snuggle in his absence. When he finished his business and rejoined her, she was a glimpse of deep black hair peeking out from the cloud-like covers and no more. He sat on the bed to determine how to find the way again into her arms when the mound of blankets shifted and attacked him, pinning him down to the bed. He twisted, dodging, but got tangled in the covers with a wide-awake Inquisitor sitting on his chest, grinning down at him, her hair spilling down on them like a waterfall. </p><p>"Boker tov," she grinned. </p><p>"Good morning," he replied in kind, and bucked his legs to knock her off. She yelped and rolled over - he lunged for her but got a handful of pillows and laughter instead. She darted around behind him and tried to push him down to the bed, but her force was like a featherweight against him and he slipped her off to one side as she squirmed, pinning her underneath him. She went loose, smiling up at him in the sunshine. He did not see the trap and bent down to kiss her. She wiggled away and used a move that she had <em>not</em> known the last time they did this, and he found himself pinned as she knelt on his chest, pressing down on his collarbone with the blade of one hand.</p><p>He tried to rise and found that he couldn't - his arm and torso were locked in her grip, and she chuckled as he twisted in protest. He looked up at her through his eyelashes - a calculated move, one that he would not describe as a pout, whatever she said - and she made a small, happy noise in victory before releasing the pin, sitting on his chest like a victor on a throne.</p><p>"Where did you learn that?" He reached up and tucked a strand of wayward hair behind her ear, cupping her cheek. Oh, he loved her.</p><p>"Secret." She grinned.</p><p>"Sera? Cassandra."</p><p>"Lace Harding," she admitted, reaching behind herself to re-secure her fraying braid. She pulled it apart carefully, section by section, and her hair was long enough that it brushed his skin as it came loose, a soft waterfall of sensation. He closed his eyes in pleasure, feeling her smile, shake her head, shift her weight as she expertly re-did the braid. </p><p>"Wait," he said, then hesitated. </p><p>"Hmm?"</p><p>A foolish request. And yet - "Let me do it for you."</p><p>"You know how to braid?"</p><p>"I enjoy having you twined around my fingers."</p><p>She laughed at that and slid off his chest, perching on the edge of the bed. He sat up and took the quick, messy braid in his hands, along with the wide-toothed comb she handed him from the bedside table. He started at the bottom, slowly unpicking the tangles, turning the braid into a river of darkness that flowed through his hands, the deep shadows almost red in the sunlight. She melted as he worked, sighing with pleasure as if she was coming undone with the touch and the softness and the sun. He wanted to leave her hair loose, to take her in his arms and lie with her on the soft white sheets, and the black river of her hair, and the golden beams daylight- but he had promised her a braid, and so bound the river up again in a thick plait, his fingers slowly remembering the once familiar pattern. </p><p>She pulled the braid over her shoulder to inspect his work when he was done. "Lovely," she smiled. "Where did you learn to do such a thing?"</p><p>He looked down his nose at her. "I was not always bald, you know."</p><p>She scooted close to him and held her braid up to his head, imagining. "I don't really see it." At the look on his face, she leaned in for a kiss. "I'm sure it was lovely. And I love how you look now. You're not like anybody else - the lines of you," she ran her hand over his head, the back of his neck, around to the edge of his chin, "your smile, the look in your eyes." Her fingers lifted under his chin, and he would not move away if his life depended on it. "You're not like anybody else. You're entirely you. Entirely wonderful."</p><p>He couldn't help his flush, couldn't help but close his eyes, too full of emotion to look at her. "Vhenan."</p><p>"Solas."</p><p>He opened his eyes a crack. Oh, how she was smiling at him. </p><p>"I love it when you call me that. Vhenan."</p><p>He pulled her close, pressed his head against her brow. "It is true."</p><p>"Not lover's lies?" </p><p>He shook his head, "No," and took her hand and held it to his heart. "Ar lath, ma vhenan."</p><p>And through - through the bond that did not exist, should not exist, he felt it. Her wonder. Her happiness. Her overflowing joy, the taste of it like the first taste of spring after a long, cold winter. Like the first day back in the sun. And in return - </p><p>He knew the words before she said them, sensed the emotion before she could speak. "Ar lath," she said, and her joy, for a moment, made everything worthwhile. "I love you, too." She smiled, and there were tears pricking at the corner of her eyes as she did. "I love you, too."</p><p> </p><p>He drew her into his arms. What paths they had walked to both come here, to this place, seemed impossible. Were impossible. He had come through time and dreams, war and rebellion, and here he was, and he loved her.</p><p>And she loved him.</p><p>He was loved. She loved him. What a thing to have found.</p><p>What a price he'd have to lose.</p><p>But even with that thought, the Din'anshiral had never seemed farther away. Now, he was here. Now, he had her in his arms. And when the time came -</p><p>When the time came, he would go on his final journey knowing that he had loved, and been loved.</p><p>She drew away from him, just a little, and searched his face as if it held a mystery. He tilted her head and kissed her, then again, then again. Here in this moment, in the light of the sun, they were together.</p><p>Here, in this moment, it was enough.</p><p>~</p><p>She ended up lying on his chest, tracing soft patters with her fingertips onto his skin. He watched the light play off her face and once again, tried to sear the image of her into memory. He kept getting distracted; the feeling of her touch was light and gentle and far too arousing for the sweet contentment in her face. </p><p>She looked up and saw, perhaps, the darkening of his eyes. Or felt him shift underneath her. Or sensed it through the bond that should not be. It would occur to him, later, that she had rather too many ways to read him. But in this moment it was no bad thing - she very purposefully shifted, her thigh slotting between his legs and dragging.</p><p>The space between them grew hot.</p><p>He raised an eyebrow at her, pretending he was not affected. She grinned and continued to trace patterns on his chest - then looked up at him with a question as she let the edge of her nail drag across his skin.</p><p>He hissed a breath in pleasure before he could stop himself. </p><p>Then again, why should he?</p><p>There were a number of reasons, of course, and most of them a variation on "I am the Dread Wolf, Fen'Harel." But that did not seem to matter much. She grinned and drew her nail across his chest again, and the sensation was like bright fire, hot and perfect.</p><p>He would never admit to the sound that escaped from his mouth, how it scattered the thoughts from his mind.</p><p>She wriggled in delight at this, evoking another sound from him. "Is that a thing you'd like to play with today?"</p><p>"Hmm?" his words had gone somewhere else. He had to batter them back into his skull. </p><p>"Would you like me to do more of that? Scratching you?" She pressed a kiss into his collarbone, then lightly bit. "Biting you?"</p><p>"Ah." Where had all his sense gone. He knew how to use words, once.</p><p>"Solas?" she tapped his cheek. "We have to talk first, if we're going to play with pain."</p><p>"I would hardly call it pain," he protested, wanting her to continue. Not wanting to do the work of <em>boundaries</em> and <em>negotiation, </em>just wanting more.</p><p>She slid off of him - a tragedy equal to the fall of Arlathan - and sat next to him, smiling cheerfully, until he hauled himself upright and tried to coax the blood back where it belonged.</p><p>She waited, grinning, absolutely delighted with his struggle. His love was heartless. </p><p>His love was a brat.</p><p>And she, she was right. They should talk about this. "I do like that," he said through the floating feeling. "It does not hurt, does not feel like pain, when I am..."</p><p>"Horny?" she chirped.</p><p>"Aroused," he growled, and she wiggled in delight. </p><p>"So you like scratching. You like bites. How do you feel about having marks?"</p><p>Her mark on his skin. Focus, Solas. He had to focus, had to have this conversation. Had to keep her safe, had to be responsible. "Yes." He swallowed. "I would like that very much, but - nowhere visible."</p><p>"Visible when you're shirtless? Pantless?"</p><p>"Not visible when I am wearing my normal tunic and trousers, thank you."</p><p>She bit her lip, eyes trailing up and down all the skin in question, then shook her own head. He was not the only one who could have trouble focusing in these conversations. "I'm not comfortable scratching or biting hard enough to draw blood," she said.</p><p>He nodded. "You enjoy causing pain, but not injury?"</p><p>Aviva scrunched up her nose at this. "I enjoy... giving you pleasure. Making you feel good, making you feel <em>me</em>. It's more about that than causing pain." She shrugged. "It's fine for some people, but it's not my thing."</p><p>Not a sadist then; he found himself completely unsurprised. He had played on both sides of that line, in the past. Now, in this moment - he found himself wanting to take whatever she gave to him. To give whatever she would take from him. </p><p>There had been a - feeling. When the fire of her nails, her teeth, had rippled through him. Like floating, but not. Like relaxing, but not. Like everything was immediate and still at a distance, like the world had condensed down to only sensation. Like he had become nothing but the pleasure, and the pain.</p><p>It was very, very good. He wanted it so much, it was frightening. </p><p>Equally concerning was the speed at which his speech had left him.</p><p>"We have a verbal system, to stop or to continue," he thought aloud. "Perhaps we could establish a non-verbal system, as well."</p><p>"Ah, good." She tilted her head to one side, thinking. "I'll put my hand in yours and you squeeze it, if all is well and you want me to continue." She did, slipping her small hand in his, and he tightened his fingers around hers. "If you want me to stop, don't do anything. If you <em>need </em>me to stop, tap on any part of me three times." She demonstrated, tapping on his forearm thrice.</p><p>He nodded. Good.</p><p>"When it comes to pain... where on your body is good? Where should I avoid?"</p><p>On the road, she would sometimes spend a day without saying so many words. The first month they knew one another, he had counted her speech by the syllables coaxed from between her lips. But here, in this place, she spoke like a waterfall. Keeping them both safe.</p><p>"Avoid my face," he said, "Neither would I enjoy such sensation on my..." he scowled, there was no word in Common that was not either dry nor crass. He settled for "genitals." </p><p>She nodded. "Back? Arms? Chest? Thighs?"</p><p>A shudder ran through him. "Oh, yes."</p><p>She grinned, and the shudder went deeper into his core. She looked as if she would devour him, and he... ached for it. He wanted it. "Of what we've done before - what would you like on the table? Or off of it?"</p><p>Focus. Almost there. He gathered his willpower and reviewed the things they had explored. "I would like - all the things we have done, I would enjoy. I would," and he swallowed at this admission, "I would be good for you. I would take whatever you give me." He closed his eyes. "I would like you to take pleasure in me." </p><p>"That can be arranged," she murmured, and he did not think he could remain rational for much longer. "Anything else?"</p><p>He would never admit how much he loved it, when she reduced him to this. "Please," he said, a raw edge to the word, and she slid forward on the bed and whispered in his ear, "Yes, love," and kissed him so deeply, so fiercely that he could not think for it. </p><p>He did not need to think for it. </p><p>He could let go.</p><p>He could let go and let himself fall downwards into the kiss, into her touches, into the way she lay him down onto the bed like a precious, delicate thing. His limbs felt heavy as she traced them, up and down his arms, up and down his chest, skating the waistband of his legs and back up again, aggravatingly back up again. Her nails would graze his skin, then her touch soften, and she looked at him-</p><p>Oh, the way she was looking at him.</p><p>He had never been wanted like this before. </p><p>She leaned down, slowly, slowly. He lifted his head to meet her, to take the kiss from her lips, but she put a single finger on his breastbone and pinned him down onto the bed. He strained against her, fighting to claim the kiss that she kept just out of his reach, and she laughed and pressed harder with the edge of her nail against him. He was held between the two, balanced between the pain and the promise of the pleasure and oh, how it drove him.</p><p>She grinned like a predator and let her lips <em>just</em> brush his - not enough, not nearly enough - then ducked her head and sucked a mark where the crescent moon of her fingernail had dug into him. She took her time, and the feeling grew and grew in his chest, hot and wild, bright and perfect, and he cried out for the feeling and cried out when it ended. When she pulled away, the spot was red and hot, bruised and perfect, and she moved to bite another under his collarbone - first on one side, then the other, and he thought he shouted for the feel of her mark on him.</p><p>How perfect it felt, to have her mark on him.</p><p>The sensations flooded through his mind, knocking him into the bright, quiet place where the entirety of the universe was contained at the point where she touched him. It had no words or worries - only the want and the need, the pleasure and the pain, and how safe he was lying in her hands. Her hands, scratching marks down the lengths of his arms, his chest, bright ribbons of fire, wrapping around him. He no longer knew what sounds were escaping his mouth, only knew how desperately he wanted this, this place, this fire, this peace.</p><p>She was saying something, the words coming into him from a long way away. He had to swim up towards her voice, towards understanding. "Color," she was saying, prompting, checking in. "Color, vhenan, what color is this? Green, keep going? Red, stop?"</p><p>"Green," he murmured like a prayer. Green, this was all green, for the mark and the rift and the leaves growing up against the sky - green, good, keep going, and she did, running her nail over his nipple and he gasped as the sensation traveled all the way through him. Green, green, green. More. Oh, he was so hungry for it.</p><p>She hummed in pleasure and shifted off of his chest, which felt as cruel as the world ending. He tried to sit up, to follow wherever she went, but she pressed on the mark in the center of his desk and he made a light, high, desperate sound, at the feeling, oh yes, and stayed where he was told.</p><p>He didn't have to make the choices anymore. She had him.</p><p>He watched, hands flexing and curling into fists, breathing heavily as she stood and wriggled out of the thin shift she wore to bed. Yes, good, better, and better still she hooked her fingers in his waistband and slowly eased his leggings down, yes, good, more of her skin touching him. She spread his legs wide and he bit back a sound, a sound of being vulnerable, a sound of being exposed, an alien feeling, so incredibly sweet, what was happening to him?</p><p>Why did he want it so very, very badly?</p><p>She slid back on top of him, straddling one of his legs with a smile and the edge of one soft fingertip down his length. He was so sensitive that he bucked at the feeling - with one hand she held his hip down to the bed and repeated the motion with the other and he had never felt so thoroughly restrained. She leaned down and, with a slow, exquisite motion, bit the soft skin on the inside of his thigh, pain and pleasure washing through him, indistinguishable and brilliant.</p><p>He could not remember the last time he had felt so alive.</p><p>She marked him, ruined him, wrecked him, playing out a melody of want and need, of sense and satisfaction as if he were something beautiful, something precious, something worth her claim. The universe was nothing but the places where she touched him, and he was nothing but brilliance, to take what he was given. She slipped her hand into his own and he squeezed - yes, please, yes, please! - and then realized, slowly, that she was saying something and drifted back to the surface of that bright, warm place, where he could hear again.</p><p>His eyes flickered open - when had he closed them? - and her smile in the sunshine, the look in her eyes-</p><p>For the first time, he understood what people meant when they used the word <em>sacred.</em> </p><p>Her face held a question. What had she said? </p><p>"...want to take you in my mouth. Want to make you come."</p><p>He- yes. No. Not yet. He shook his head, moved his lead-weighted hands to grab her wrist. "Want you." She tilted her head to the side. "Want you. Your pleasure."</p><p>A small smile, sweet. "If you want but - I don't need it. You don't have to worry about me."</p><p>"Want," he said. "Please. <em>Please.</em>" And she grinned at him, at his need, and the cool scent of her magic, like a gentle melody, like the sound of snow falling, settled down around him, the spell that he had taught her, <em>please-</em></p><p>
  <em>Please please please please please-</em>
</p><p>She sank down, taking him. </p><p>With the look on her face he knew the meaning of the word <em>holy.</em></p><p>She started slowly, savoring, and he wanted to thrust up to meet her but she kept him pinned, taking just as much of him as she wanted and then rocking back again. She didn't stop touching him, with the pads of her fingers and the scraping of her nails, lacing him with lines of sweet fire as the pleasure ran through him in waves, pulling and pushing and wrecking him against the rocks. Her rhythm stuttered and, however distant speech was, he could hear the soft gasps she made, the shake in her thighs, the soft litany of praise - how he looked when he wanted her so badly, how beautiful and precious, how stunning he was, how she loved feeling him. </p><p>The words pushed him back into that place, the place without worry, just feeling and sensation. His mind - his unending, thinking, wild-edged mind, lost always in circles and loops, in thoughts running, never-ending - his mind was <em>quiet</em>.</p><p>For the first time that he could remember, there was <em>quiet </em>in his mind.</p><p>He could have wept with the relief of it, if he could weep, which he couldn't, for she had picked up the pace and kept losing the run of her words as she took him. She rocked forward, almost falling into him, stopping herself with her hands on his chest, her nails on his chest, biting into him, taking her pleasure.</p><p>Oh, how glorious, to let her take him. </p><p>She slid off of him suddenly, abruptly, and the loss of her sent a jolt of panic crashing down his spine - where, what, why, <em>no</em> - but she scooted back, licked a long line from the root of him up to his tip and he shouted soundlessly at the sensation. A spell pooled around him, the energy dripping down, thick and cold around his thighs and he would shake but for the way her weight grounded him even as she spread his legs further apart. </p><p>Her mouth closed around him and his hips jerked, helpless in her grip. Her fingers pressed, hard anchors in the flesh of his hips, his thighs, grounding him as he soared. </p><p>Then she shifted and touched him, ever so softly and gently, at his entrance.</p><p>In the place beyond words, he found one ringing, <em>please, please, please, </em>and he gripped tight the signal that she placed into his hands. He was unsure if his pleading escaped his lips or simply rang through the entirety of his body but she heard him and slid a finger in. She took him, took him with her mouth and her fingers and the twinned sensation spun him somewhere good and bright and achingly perfect, somewhere he had been searching for the entirety of his long, long, life.</p><p>He could feel the orgasm coming, long before it hit. Everything was distant, like water running away from the shore, like a held breath, gathering, like the beginning of something and the end. When it broke, he lost all sense of himself - an instant of white-hot fire, and then it ended and, drained, he pooled slowly back into his body again.</p><p>The first thing he felt was her skin under his cheek, her kiss on his head, her arms wrapped around him. The first thing he heard was the soft rush of her breath, the beating of her heart underneath him. The first thing he saw, when he opened his eyes, was the rise of her breast and the sunlight streaming down around them.</p><p>He wept, but he did not know why.</p><p>And she held him.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Since the last time I wrote for this fandom, I have had three different jobs and moved four times. I've gotten married, and I've gotten divorced, I've lived through abuse and have learned how to escape from it. I've been anxious, depressed, and concussed, and I've had a LOT of therapy, and I lost a gallbladder.</p><p>And I've learned, and I've loved. I've been loved. I've grown. And even here, at the ending of the world, I wouldn't change a thing. The people I've found - they're everything. The family I've found is everything. I have hope, and a paying job, and my health, and I'm wanted. I'm wanted, and I'm loved.</p><p>And some days, I'm so happy I don't know how I can believe it - even now, as the world feels like it's coming to an end.</p><p>I had to write. I'm locked inside and everything is canceled and I had to write again. I am still writing, there will be more. Please tell me if it's good for you, what's good for you. Please tell me if it's not. Please tell me what you think. Writing again is very scary - if you liked this, I'd love to hear if it's good for you, too. </p><p>Be well,<br/>Alona</p><p>Edit 4/20: thank you, thank you, thank you for all of your love and well-wishes. I send my heart out to each one of you; thank you for reading.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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